Here are some of the things in American history I was taught little to nothing about at American high school. I post this as a way to compare notes and get ideas for future posts. It is hard to know what you do not know, so comments and suggestions about what I left out are welcomed!
Note: I will not count anything after 1965 since the school year would always seem to end just before the Vietnam War! Also note that while some of these did not take place on American soil, they are still important for understanding American history, like the English Civil War or Caribbean slavery.
In no particular order:
- Delaware Indians – who used to own the land the high school stood on
- W.E.B. DuBois
- Medgar Evers
- Malcolm X
- slave patrols
- Nat Turner
- Denmark Vesey
- Stono Rebellion
- Toussaint Louverture
- Abolition of the Transatlantic slave trade
- The Middle Passage
- Indian boarding schools
- Indian reservations
- Lincoln’s racism
- Sally Hemings
- The Map of Stolen Indian Land (those not gained through treaty)
- Korematsu v United States
- George Washington and Native Americans
- Pequot Indians
- Bartolome de Las Casas
- Indian slaves
- The Hispaniola genocide
- The Nadir of American race relations (1890-1940)
- Chinese Exclusion Act
- FHA loans
- GI Bill
- White racism – except as an invisible frame through which everything was taught
- The Third Enlargement of Whiteness – or any of the other enlargements or even the idea that “white” could even change
- Madison Grant
- Ota Benga
- Franz Boas
- minstrel show
- blackface
- Racial stereotypes
- The Seminole wars
- Black Indians
- Multiracial societies
- Caribbean slavery
- Brazilian slavery
- The Great Awakening
- Ida B. Wells
- Bessie Coleman
- Philippine-American War
- David Fagen
- Wovoka
- The Indian Wars
- Freedom Riders
- SNCC
- NAACP
- Mormons
- Utah statehood
- Indian rights – or lack thereof
- Tsien Hsue-Shen
- Hollywood blacklist
- Kingdom of Hawaii
- Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show – and how it shaped stereotypes about Indians
- Miscegenation laws
- American communism
- Homestead Act – how it shut out blacks
- Tuskegee Experiment
- Tuskegee Airmen
- Liberia
- Fordlândia
- United Brands
- Racial wealth gap
- Chinese Americans – except for building the railroads
- Japanese Americans – covered, but not well
- African Americans – covered, but not well
- Italian Americans
- Jewish Americans
- Puerto Ricans
- Dominican Americans
- Chicanos
- French Americans
- Polish Americans
- Irish Americans – except for the potato famine
- Scotch-Irish Americans
- Native Americans – before 1492 and after 1890
- German Americans
- David Walker’s Appeal
- Harlem Renaissance
- English Civil War
- Choctaw Indians
- Removal of the Cheyenne
- redlining
- blockbusting
- white flight
- white suburbia
- black ghetto
- The Great Migration
- Immigration Acts
- Selma
- Martin Luther King, Jr’s anti-racism
- Little Rock school integration
- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
- American exceptionalism – except as an invisible frame
- 1904 St Louis World’s Fair
- American Canadians
- American Empire
- Cointelpro
- California – covered, but not well
- The genocide of Native Americans
- Crazy Horse
- multinational corporations
- Black Codes
- Rape of black slave women
- Tulsa Riot of 1921
- Harlem Riot of 1943
- Rosewood massacre
- Indian Appropriation Acts
- sundown towns
- Emmett Till
- Bacon’s Rebellion
- racial steering
- Housing segregation
- Critical Race Theory
- The history of black history
- Reconstruction – covered, but not well
- American Museum of Natural History
- National Geographic
- Time magazine
- television news
- prisons
See also:
Abagond 
That pretty much sums it up.
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@ abagond
wow — and I thought I had a long list but there are some things on this one that I need to jot down!
@ brothawolf
It sure does yet most of us (blacks) still don’t get it
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“Delaware Indians – who used to own the land the high school stood on”
I’ve heard some people say “Indians had no system of land ownership therefore they didn’t “own” the land”.
Regarding Indian boarding schools;
Christianity is the culprit there. Christianity is a universalist one world order cult that seeks global domination through conversions.
I’m surprised you converted to Catholicism and would like to know why?
Did any priest or nun ever tell you about The Doctrine of Discovery?
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@ Why
1. From what I know most Indians did not have an idea of personal private property, BUT they certainly had the idea of tribal property, that each tribe had its own land.
2. Missionaries ran many of the schools and the government certainly wanted to destroy their religions as part of breaking their spirit, but the intended assimilation went way before mere religion. White Americans of the time were profoundly ethnocentric and racist, way more so than now.
3. I have not written a post about why I am Catholic. To talk about it here would derail the thread. I have written about why I am Christian:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/why-i-am-a-christian/
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Let me just add my name to the list of “me neithers.” History was nothing more than a series of dates and wars, language was mostly verb conjugations and vocabulary, with a sprinkling of literature thrown in, philosophy, art, and music were electives (and 100% European). Thank goodness I was motivated and a bookworm.
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Abagond, since you asked for subjects that should have been taught but weren’t I would like to offer the following:
1) Haiti’s role in the struggle to free the new world from Europe.
a) The Louisiana purchase made possible by the defeat of Napoleon’s American empire based on slavery. http://usslave.blogspot.com/2013/04/egalite-for-all-toussaint-louverture.html
http://usslave.blogspot.com/2013/04/haiti-and-white-curse-by-eduardo-galeano.html
Georges Biassou, A leader of the 1791 slave uprising in St-Domingue who ended his days in Florida as an officer in The Spanish militia. He moved to Florida after Toussaint L’Ouverture defeated him in 1795.
b) Haiti’s role in liberating Colombia and five other south american nations from Spain.
http://usslave.blogspot.com/2013/04/bolivar-american-liberator.html
c) Thomas Jefferson’s racist policy toward the new nation. http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/Quaderno/Quaderno2/Q2.C5.Zuckerman.pdf
2) The role played by businesses with ties to major banks and insurance companies in maintaining slavery in the USA. http://usslave.blogspot.com/2013/05/jp-morgan-chase-links-to-slavery.html
http://usslave.blogspot.com/2013/05/slave-insurance-policies.html
3)Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, the Kongolese Saint Anthony, her role in the catholic church of 16th century Kongo and her struggle against the transatlantic slave trade. http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/07/02/1706-dona-beatriz-kimpa-vita-kongo/
4) The role played by a prominent African, Malik Ambar, in the history of India. http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060813/spectrum/art.htm
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By the way, Abagond, I love that photo. Can you provide some info on that?
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At what age would you guys say children should start learning about these things?
I ask for two reasons:
1. some of these things are very brutal and I assume we don’t want any white washing.
2. this seems like too much to teach during the four years of high school.
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“Missionaries ran many of the schools and the government certainly wanted to destroy their religions as part of breaking their spirit, but the intended assimilation went way before mere religion. White Americans of the time were profoundly ethnocentric and racist, way more so than now. ”
And they were way more Christian than now too.
Christianity does not, I repeat DOES NOT, respect other religions or even believe that other religions have the “divine right” to exist.
You cannot “white wash” or “color treat” this fact.
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To show you how broken the school system was where I went to high school. We had the coaches from the athletic department as the teacher. We had open book test. Whatever I tried to read about I went and tried to learn on my own. That’s just how trifling things were. SMH,
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The public school system was not designed to make great intellectuals and deep thinkers out of its students. You are given basics, often half truths and sometimes out right lies, in order for you to function as a “productive citizen” in society.
All “real learning” must be done outside the classroom.
My recommendation is for Black folks to home school their kids or form their own education co-ops in their neighborhoods.
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“At what age would you guys say children should start learning about these things?”
*************
Solesearch
I’ll CHIME in…
They should begin learning about the disease that WHITENESS is in FACTUAL ways as they’re being formed in their mother’s womb. (We need to talk to/engage our children about all things as soon as they’re conceived!)
In this way OUR CHILDREN might have a chance to overcome/ward off the debilitating negative effects of self hate as demonstrated in The Doll Test and other similar studies/experiments!
We ALL should want to learn/recover what was taken from us as A KIDNAPPED PEOPLE regarding our story about OUR African Roots – who we REALLY ARE as AFRIKANS … our culture, ways, beliefs, philosophies, religions, and much more …
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I just recently learned about the Tulsa riots from DOAN’s blog. I just recently learned and started reading about the Gullah Wars because I was interested in Gullah culture. Thank you for the list, I will start reading on all those topics. Black children and their parents and guardians need to read and study together. Go to cultural events. I think you have to reach youngsters at an early age.
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But it’s probably difficult if the parents and are not interested in learning. These things start in the home.
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“But it’s probably difficult if the parents and are not interested in learning. These things start in the home.”
Home schooling is the way to go!
We all have at least one relative sitting on their behind at home who can utilize their time in learning themselves and teaching our kids.
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@ Why: I like the home schooling idea. But what about the poor and disenfranchised who don’t have the tools and don’t know how to help their children. And all the public schools closing in various parts of the United States doesn’t help either. And I think we should factor in literacy in adults and people with learning disabilities. These are just my opinions.
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I have observed that the more upscale the community the better the schools. In lots of urban areas they are closing the schools. My best friend’s daughter attends an excellent middle school with all kinds of state of the art learning resources and excellent teachers. The urban communities are at such a disadvantage compared to them. I truly believe there is a system working against the poor and disenfranchised.
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They would rather spend billions of dollars on prisons than educate black children.
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The only way I learned about Malcolm X was we had a substitute who was a Muslim teach us about black history. I remember we just were so stoked that day. I think he was a conscious black man trying to educated young black kids. He was never asked to come back.
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He was a very young conscious black man.
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The only thing I can mention is, what happen to the blacks/african americans that fought on the British side during the Revolutionary War. British project, sending blacks that migrated from U.S to Nova Scotia to Britan than finally the country today Sierra Leone where the americans get the idea for Liberia instead of giving land to blacks in non-U.S territory to disrupt the Native Americans.
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“The only way I learned about Malcolm X was we had a substitute who was a Muslim teach us about black history. I remember we just were so stoked that day. I think he was a conscious black man trying to educated young black kids.”
He could not have been too “conscious” if he chose the bigoted and exclusivistic Islamic religion as his faith. Muslims were responsible for bringing African slaves into India, a region of the world that had no slavery or concept of it prior.
Christianity and Islam are two competing new world order agendas. Neither will be satisfied until all the people on the planet self-identify as either Christian or Muslim. Indigenous cultures and religions be damned.
“@ Why: I like the home schooling idea. But what about the poor and disenfranchised who don’t have the tools and don’t know how to help their children. And all the public schools closing in various parts of the United States doesn’t help either. And I think we should factor in literacy in adults and people with learning disabilities. These are just my opinions.”
Yes, these areas need to be addressed. First, people who are not financially capable of supporting children should not be having them until they can support them. The problem is that this a never ending multi-generational cycle until 1 individual says “the buck stops here” and doesn’t have a kid he or she can’t afford.
Condoms are free at free clinics where America’s so-called “poor” live. I see a lot of willful ignorance in those areas. They know where to get the free prophalactics but they are purposely not using them. In fact, in many otherwise poorly funded schools sex education is still there providing these young people with that info. Really on that point I say there is no excuse.
The other points I’ll think about.
However one doesn’t have to be a genius or even very smart to home school their child. A willingness and desire to learn and to share what you’ve learned with your child is really all it takes.
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@ Why: I must say I am enjoying you as a commentator on this thread today. I have enjoyed the discourse.
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@ Why : About the comment about the substitute Muslim teacher. I just remember that guy teaching us about Malcom X. Your comments on Islam and Christianity are giving me pause. I am trying to learn about Islam vs Christianity. Again I enjoyed the discourse.
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Thanks Mary. Same to you!
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[…] Here are some of the things in American history I was taught little to nothing about at American high school. I post this as a way to compare notes and get ideas for future posts. […]
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Abagond: W.E.B. Dubois is something I would be interested in. Toussaint Louverture is also an interesting historical figure.
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You probably were not taught about The Doctrine of Discovery in school;
Doctrine of Discovery? What’s that?
Papal Bulls of the 15th century gave CHRISTIAN explorers the right to claim lands they “discovered” and lay claim to those lands for their Christian Monarchs. Any land that was not inhabited by Christians was available to be “discovered”, claimed, and exploited. If the “pagan” inhabitants could be converted, they might be spared. If not, they could be enslaved or killed.
Read more here;
http://www.doctrineofdiscovery.org/
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@ Why: Thanks for that I will check that out. No never heard of the Doctrine of Discovery.
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@ grin and bear it
It is a family arriving in Chicago in 1920, having fled mob violence down South in Paris, Texas. It is an iconic image of the Great Migration of blacks from the South.
More:
Source:
http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=76,4,3,10
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I think I read about this somewhere. My God that is horrendous and sad.
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I read this some months ago on The Root.com or The Grio.com. I remember reading about the family be burned and tortured. A shameful moment among many in this country where our people are concerned. I there are many horrendous atrocities in this country that happened to black people.
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Thank you for this list.
I would like to mention, Henrietta Lacks in her contribution to the world of histology and science as a whole, with the HeLa cell. And the exhaustive history of medical apartheid, fascinating read (will turn your stomach with the information laid out in this book).
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Henrietta-Lacks-Immortal-Cells.html
and
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Great list. Most people don’t know about those topics. Here’s a few more that might be good additions.
-Maroon Societies – there is a great book by the same name
-Elijah Lovejoy
-Stono Rebellion
-Henry Box Brown
-Black slave owners, especially William “April” Ellison
-Anthony Johnson, wife Mary Johnson
-Negro Act of 1740
-internal slave trade
-illegal post-1810 international trade
-Texas Revolution – connection to slavery, racism, manifest destiny
-“Real” origins of the Constitution and Bill of Rights
-so many things 🙂
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Wow, anyone who has read your blog can tell you take notes. And one of them is the draft post I sent you earlier 😛
You have already listed enough to keep you busy for the next year or two. I could even add more to that.
How about a new (more balanced) spin on stuff that is typically covered in High School american history, but which is presented only from a certain angle, eg,
– the Lewis and Clark Expedition (and the development of Manifest Destiny)
– Andrew Jackson
– George Washington Carver
– the “Wild” West
– the Geary Act
– Benjamin Banneker
– John F. Kennedy (and Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter)
– Strom Thurmond
– George Wallace
(and everything else that was supposedly taught in High School) Look at your page
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/why-there-should-be-a-white-history-month/
other things:
– the Mississippi Delta region (home of Delta blues, some famous people and a whole heckuva lot of racist problems)
– Elvis Presley
– Sam Cooke
– Betty Everett
– Motown
– All black towns (established in the early 20th century mostly in the south to reduce black population in larger towns and to reduce services that the larger town provides for the area)
– all black towns (suburbs established in the mid-20th century near East and midwest cities to provide an alternative to blockbusting to provide residential neighborhoods for blacks)
– Alaska (history)
– other Asian-Americans (Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Hmong) and Pacific Islanders
– Amerasians overseas (not just Vietnam, but also Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan)
– Asian War Brides after WWII (actually, was a precursor to the repeal of the Anti-Miscegenation acts)
– non-American perceptions of blacks, esp. when they travel overseas
– evolution of race-relation issues in Hollywood and TV (1940s – 60s / 70s – 90s all have a very different look at it).
– other Supreme court cases (Wong Kim Ark, Lam vs. Rice, the Bakke incident, even Brown v. Board)
– Affirmative Action in USA vs. similar programs in other countries
– the Confederate Flag
– black churches
– Black Muslims in the USA
– Bob Jones University (incl, interracial dating bans, racial segregation, Bob Jones University v. United States, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush campaign speeches)
– Black Colleges
relationship between Asians and Blacks in the USA and overseas:
– Rodney King incident
– Asian shopkeepers in black neighborhoods
– Asian-Americans in the Jim Crow south
– Asian men and Black women
(I have drafted something on #2 and #3, but it seems like I need to split them up into 2-3 posts each).
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Also, the Smithsonian museums, esp.
– Museum of American History
– Anacostia Community Museum
– Museum of the American Indian
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Really everything public schools don’t teach (including but beyond history) can be summed up by saying: They don’t teach about the reality–the good and bad–of the actual word we live in.
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Massacres of Native Americans by U.S. troops: Ash Hollow (Bluewater creek), 1855; Bear River, 1863; Whitestone Hill, 1863; Sand Creek, 1864; Washita,
1868; Marias River, 1870; Wounded Knee, 1890
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@ jefe @ pegodaaj @ gro jo @ Daniel Rosenthal, etc
Thanks for your suggestions!
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@ Why
I agree that Christianity and Islam are universalist. They both want to “save” the whole human race. “Catholic” is Greek for universal. But in this day and age Christianity, at least in rich Western countries, is too weak to drive history. Even by the 1800s that was true. The West has been secularizing for over 300 years, much to the horror of popes. But despite that the old universalist mindset of Christianity remains. So now it is Westernization, particularly consumerism, that is seen as the answer for the whole human race, not Christ. And White Americans are its Chosen People, not Jews or Christians.
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My mother, an educator, taught me most of this outside of school. She also taught any friends who happened to be hanging around.
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This shows how important a real learning is.
On the christianity vs islam: they both have the same god, as does judaism- Muhammed saw himself as a reformer who would bring back the true religion of Abraham.
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Wasn’t taught any of that in school either. American History was a buncha names, dates and wars and stuff we conquered or “discovered”, and slavery was a couple of paragraphs in the text book. Then during February a sprinkle of Dr. King, a smattering of Rosa Parks and then moving on to more names dates and wars to memorize for the multiple choice open book “tests”.
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“This shows how important a real learning is.
On the christianity vs islam: they both have the same god, as does judaism- Muhammed saw himself as a reformer who would bring back the true religion of Abraham.”
Right. That’s the problem with them. The god of Abraham is just that – the god of Abraham.
Everybody else around the world has their own gods, prophets, sages, holy places based on their own local environments, and traditions.
But Islam and Christianty want the entire planet to come under the umbrella of Abraham’s god.
If you read the Bible that god was “jealous” and did not want other gods to be worshipped alongside “him”.
Right from the start (Judaism) this was a god and an ideology that was not open to religious freedom.
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Abagond, “I agree that Christianity and Islam are universalist. They both want to “save” the whole human race. “Catholic” is Greek for universal. But in this day and age Christianity, at least in rich Western countries, is too weak to drive history. Even by the 1800s that was true. The West has been secularizing for over 300 years, much to the horror of popes. But despite that the old universalist mindset of Christianity remains. So now it is Westernization, particularly consumerism, that is seen as the answer for the whole human race, not Christ. ”
From my perspective travelling the world, particularly regions where indigenous religions and traditions remain strong despite the attempts of Abrahamic onslaughts, thousands of indigenous religions and traditions are alive, well, kicking and coming to the West.
Right now Protestant Christianity, which has always been the dominant religion in the US, is a minority religion and Buddhism is the fastest growing religion here.
The Eastern traditions like Yoga, Vedanta, Tao, Buddhism, etc are practically becoming mainstream and will be completely mainstream within 50 years tops.
There are so many traditions to choose from besides just “Christianity or Atheism” or “Christianity or Consumerist Materialism”.
May I add that people of the African diaspora are also waking up and researching their own pre-Abrahamic indigenous religions and practicing them.
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[…] Here are some of the things in American history I was taught little to nothing about at American high school. I post this as a way to compare notes and get ideas for future posts. It is hard to kno… […]
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[…] See on abagond.wordpress.com […]
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Thank you Abagond.
I often think about how much U.S. history is not explained up through high school. Part of the problem is that public schools think the horrors of U.S. history are not age appropriate for children. Although I did learn about slaves crammed into slave ships in 5th or 6th grade. I felt that was horrific – and yet I didn’t even hate white people or end up radicalized after it – although Arizona superintendents would have you think that high school student’s who study Mexican-American history will end up radicalized.
I learned about the extremely horrific mass murders of Native Americans by the Spanish and European-Americans while in college. The problem is that not everyone goes to college, and out of those who go, not everyone takes U.S. History.
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You forgot “Black Slave Owners” in America.
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Why,
“Right from the start (Judaism) this was a god and an ideology that was not open to religious freedom.”
Religious freedom is the right for an individual to choose their own religion. Was it common in most societies? Were individuals in African societies free to not practice animism?
Wanting everyone to be Christian because you believe it is the true religion doesn’t preclude religious freedom. You can be a Christian and believe in Religious freedom.
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Just read about the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, a race riot in North Carolina that was a coup d’etat, the only one that is officially recognized to have occurred in US history. It lay the groundwork to establish black voter disenfranchisement across the South until the 1960s.
President McKinley knew about the event, but did not do anything about it.
I did not learn about this event until just now.
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Scotch-Irish Americans
eh no considerrrred proper clan macgregor catholic irish wont give you the time of day
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Solesearch, “Wanting everyone to be Christian because you believe it is the true religion doesn’t preclude religious freedom. You can be a Christian and believe in Religious freedom.”
According to Christianity Jesus is the only way to God and if you don’t accept him as your savior then you are going to hell.
Christians believe their religion is the only true one, all others are false.
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^ I don’t see how that conflicts with what Solesearch said.
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OMG, just read about this
Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814) and the Creek War
I still don’t know why we have to treat Andrew Jackson as a hero. As a leader of the native genocide? Justifying the protection of the security of the US (so therefore, he seized those lands?) Do history books still call the Native American resistance as rebellions and the resulting genocide as wars against the United States that the US won?
And also, it was wars like these that had justified in the minds of white Americans why they needed guns.
Every time I see the statue of Jackson in Lafayette square in front of the White House I ask myself WHY? I haven’t seen the one in New Orleans, but I would ask the same question.
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raatid, that’s a long-ass list! i had to pause a few times! but yeah, there is so much to learn.
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As to if some of these topics should be taught to High School students because they’re too brutal, I have two thoughts: 1, they are the truth, and should be taught, in the hope that recognizing the truth will at least have a chance of preventing such things in the future. 2, between film, television and video games most high schoolers have seen enough violence to be able to hopefully process this.
What’s sad is I know plenty of college history majors who aren’t familiar with many of these topics.
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@Solesearch
Well; it doesn’t preclude it but there does seem to be a strong tendency for the more hardcore christians to be against it, basically the moderates on down are “okay” with religious freedom, though its hardly the first time I’ve heard people say 90% of christians in the US aren’t really christians.
Though I live in the south and you know how that goes, teachers admitting they only teach evolution because they are forced to, texas against critical thinking, people wanting forced christian dogma in schools and christianity as the national religion…..
Basically Christianity maynot be strong in the north but in the south is still strong, damn strong.
@Abagond
As for comparing notes to see what we didn’t learn.
Well no really time was spent on Black names. None on Natives at all.
Weren’t taught about the black slave owners; weren’t taught about the high rates of rape of slaves or post slaver-era to around 1965 or so.
No real indepth teaching of any subject really…..though that might simply be from trying to teach “US” History within a small period of time for the subject I guess.
Though to be fair; its been around 13 yrs since I was in highschool, there’s a lot of subjects, dates etc…..I simply don’t remember at all.
Actually a couple other things I didn’t learn about in Highschool the african enslavement of white people being the beginning of trans-atlantic slavery and just how many natives really died from disease.
The way its taught, sure it gets mentioned but usually its at the minimum implicitly stated that it was mroe white numbers and technology that did them in, which was certainly a factor, but they don’t mention that it was 90% of all natives.
Which to me; potentially falls under the racist angle, we are okay with showing us as doing bad things, as long as they make us look powerful but anything that might hurt the image of “mighty whitey” and all of a sudden that drops to the wayside.
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@ Glenn
Right, history at university is far more honest, way less “patriotic” (pro-white), but only 20% of Americans learn history at that level.
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@ V-4
How did technology do them in?
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Maybe things like guns and other weapons?
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Why,
That is true, but that doesn’t mean Christians believe in forcing people to be Christians.
I don’t think religious freedom means what you think it means.
V-4, I don’t think it has less to do with “hardcore christians” and more to do with people who are uneducated in American government, history, and philosophy.
There probably is a lot of overlap between “Hardcore christians” and these uneducated folks.
Most “hardcore christians” are also going on and on about protecting the constitution when they obviously don’t know what is in it.
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Don’t forget US schools don’t teach critical thinking, IMO the main fundaments of learning. Though I believe some critical thinking is inherent I believe it is also taught through critical reading which would be the summary of Abagond list. If we were taught just a 3rd of some of these hardcore lessons in school I think there will be a lot more open minds.
But isn’t it the American way to dumbing down, because the more you know means the more self power you own. America doesn’t want critical thinkers Oh No they get in the way of everyday brainwashing and money making.
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Almost forgot, but how can we forget about THURGOOD MARSHALL.
Over the course of the 20th century, no man has has fought so deeply and persistently against segregation (challenging the “separate but equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson) and voter disenfranchisment throught the legal process. Even since he was denied the right to study law in his home state of Maryland, he has fought to reverse “separate by equal”.
Murray v. Pearson, 169 Md. 478 (1936). – Reversed the Univ. of MD segregation policy
(I love this. He was denied studying law at the Univ. of Maryland, but after he became a lawyer, he made sure that people following him DID get to study law there.)
Sample of cases before the Supreme Court:
– Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227 (1940) – precursor to the Miranda rights
– Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944) – allowing black citizens to vote in Texas
– Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948) – invalidate restrictive covenants in deeds
– Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950) – allow black students to study law in Texas
– McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950). – allowing a black student to study for his Phd in Oklahoma
– Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) – we all know about this one – invalidated legal de jure segregation in schools altogether (although de facto continued).
– Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157 (1961) – allowing peaceful civil disobedience demonstrations via sit-ins at lunch counters and precursor to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In total, Marshall won 29 out of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court – Brilliant and Amazing man.
AND he was NOT taught to me in my US History courses in High School. I am so disgusted by that. So thoroughly disgusted. And he was born and raised in the state where I was educated. He should be the greatest Supreme Court Justice to come out of the State of Maryland. Yet, I was taught about Roger B. Taney. >:-
In fact, I never learned about the key Supreme Court Decisions except for the Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson. And I was taught that it was turned over by “kind” presidents like Lincoln and Kennedy.
Interesting tidbit: The middle school near my mother’s house where she lived until she passed away was originally named Roger B. Taney Junior High after the Chief Justice in the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Dred Scott decision (that slaves were not citizens). That ruling was invalidated by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Now the school is renamed Thurgood Marshall Middle School. 🙂
But only after he passed away.
I also hate how schools are often named after white “patriots”, many of whom did horrific terrible things.
Thurgood Marshall SHOULD NOT be relegated to Black History month. All Americans need to know about him.
[video src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Screening_of_Thurgood_during_Black_History_Month_2011.ogv" /]
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As a young person, there is many things I have yet to learn about American ”history”. And one day, I hope to learn more about it.
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Pilgrims and Puritans fighting
My schools skipped over the reconstruction period
literally was shocked in the Library when I read a sentence about it.
Russian’s helping Lincoln
French and Indian War
What really happen in the Rough Riders
Any real history of Presidents besides Washington, Lincoln, both Roosevelts,
Kennedy, Nixon.
The history of the Two Party System
Classic Musicians that are Beethoven
American Artist
Any other ethnic group in America
We don’t have a thousand years of history
but some how my school missed out on telling us about Haiti
If the Cuban war is so important why not tell us a little more
about Fidel and Che
How we lent out money during WWI and WWII
What was exactly American’s sentiment on Jews during WWII
Relocating Italians, German, and Japanese Americans during WWII
Social Dynamics during the part of history being taught
Why did it take so long to accept Jewish immigrants after WWII if we were
supposedly so caring.
What did black folks ever do for America (Not taught when I was going to school)
Black Cowboys and Indian Cowboys and Blacks in the Old West.
War of 1812 against Canada
Hell other countries usually have to study History about their bordering countries
I knew next to nothing about Mexico or Canada.
What happen after Thanksgiving did they continue their so called friendship?
What territories did we own and now own and how did we acquire them?
Only a history teacher can see my tears behind the laughter. One because it wasn’t until college that I had a good history teacher. I was heartbreaking to what my High School history teacher check with me first to make sure he was right.
History thank goodness for the Internet.
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@KOT
“If the Cuban war is so important why not tell us a little more
about Fidel and Che”
“I knew next to nothing about Mexico or Canada.”
–> Indeed, Cuba is also next to America. But all you learn is that Cuba is an enemy, Canada is a friend, and Mexico is simply trouble. You learn nothing about the people or politics of the US neighbors. You learn nothing about the Middle East, India and China.
I also asked myself as a teenager why any history before 1600s pointed only to England (and before that, to Rome), when 90% of Americans are descendant from elsewhere.
“What territories did we own and now own and how did we acquire them?
–> Yep, do Americans even know?
Internet is here now. It should be much easier to learn history than it was before 1990.
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My teacher said we were following Empires. Then I asked why we didn’t study Ghangis or his son, Why Skip out on Ethiopia especially when talking about the Church. What is worst is the poorer the area school district the less real history it seem was taught at least in the 80s and 90s.
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So what was taught in the poorer areas? Basically nothing?
I do wonder how the 19th and 20th century will be taught in 2050.
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In our current system, unless you are engaged in a specific ethnic/Asian/African studies course, history is told through he very blinkered lens of the Anglo-Saxon ethnic group of Northern Europe, with caveats to the Mediterranean peoples of Ancient Rome and Greece. This effectively mitigates the great achievements of non-Europeans, changing inventions to “contributions” to the ever progressive European culture. Also, true Christianity, the type practiced before its co-opting and alteration by the Roman Empire, is not and has never been “The white man’s religion.” Many of the core philosophical underpinnings, tenets, and practices of both Judaism and Christianity( i.e. blood sacrifices for the remission of sins, intercessory prayer, monotheism.) can be traced to the religious systems of the ancient empires of Africa. The European world merely borrowed these religious systems, and grafted their own patriarchal sky and war gods to the much larger theological reality (this is why the traditional depiction of Yahweh looks suspiciously like Zeus-muscled, middle-age white man with white beard.)
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I read a quote from Carter G. Woodson, the man behind Black History Month,believed that preserving African American history was essential to African American survival. “If a race has no history,if it has no worthwhile tradition,”Woodson reasoned, “It becomes a negligible factor in thethought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated”. He also felt that omitting African American contributions from general American history sanctioned and perpetuated racism. “The philosophy and ethic resulting from our educational system have justified slavery,peonage,segregaton,and lynching,he noted. I think this quote from Carter G. Woodson describes what this thread post is about.
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I also read another interesting quote from James Baldwin “Unless I’m in the book,you’re not in it either. Very apropos to this thread post as well.
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I read the above comments in African American History for Dummies. It is a good reference book for me to learn different things about African American history and I can follow up and read other reference books. For me it’s a good starting point. That is where I read the above comments I posted.
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[…] What I was not taught about American history […]
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#96 American Exceptionalism
On topic now re: US and Syria and Obama vs. Putin.
Does someone have a viewpoint on that? Would be great if we had a post on it.
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Wow
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Reblogged this on Setting the Record STR8.
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Any chance of filling in the links to the posts that you eventually do for the topics in the list above?
I think it would be great if you had a page re: “What I was not taught about US history” organized in an outline with the links to your posts. I think over time it would be a great anthology. Kids and parents (and maybe teachers) would look to it as a resource to share with students.
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I know it’s a bit late, but..
RE: US and Syria, the quick and dirty history
Basically the national boundries in the whole Middle East, not just Israel, are the result of post WW1 colonialism. Those silly brown folk just weren’t seen as being civilized enough to govern themselves, so the English and French split up the former Ottoman empire into a bunch of rather nonsensical protectorates.
After WW2, all of the countries people think of when they hear the term “Middle East” had been granted independence from their European patrons. Unfortunately, a series of staggering misguided decisions on the part of the Middle Eastern peoples led to pan-Arab socialist regimes forming in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, regimes closely aligned with those communist heathens in Moscow.
Of course, these were just the first few broken windows, but if us Americans didn’t step in to stop this travesty against justice it would definately become much, much worse. And so, donning her “Global Police” hat, Lady Liberty entered the fray, funding anti-regime forces, where ever they might be found. Of course, these anti-regime forces were, unfortunately, rather fond of incredibly strict interpetations of the words of their prophet (blessings and peace be upon him) but that would most definately never come back to bite us. Ever. I swear.
Jump forward to the fall of the Iranian shah, who was put on the throne after a coup that deposed the Moscow aligned elected government. Replacing him, a rather conservative regime, some might go so far as to say theocratic even. Well, the Iraqis and the Iranians got in an arguement over a little patch of swamp, which rapidly devolved into the Iran-Iraq war. 8 years of conventional and chemical warfare that cost Iran somewhere between 20 and 25% of it’s military aged male population, and left Iraq so economically shattered that Saddam felt he needed to invade his largest debtors in order to nullify Iraq’s debts.
After soundly policing Saddam’s forces all the way back to Baghdad, America proved it had learned the lesson of the Weimar Republic, Hitler and WW2 by placing heavy reparations and sanction on the Ba’athist regime. Of course, we ended up going back, and because even a broken clock is right twice a day, shortly after breaking the window that was Iraq, the entire neighborhood turned into an orgy of death, violence and popular revolutions (Also known as the Arab Spring and the rise of IS(IM/L/I/Q…)) Oh, and those Islamic fundies that we helped train. Like I said, that idea will cause issues down the line.
At this point our best option, as the US, would be to promote a strong Arab Union capable of coordination on different fronts and then offer to provide arms/materiel to help support local troops. It allows us to help resolve a situation we created, but still allows local autonomy as opposed to the age old refrain of the white man’s burden to protect the savage from his own inadequacies. Of course helping form a united Arab region would never gain support in Congress, cause it would be a threat to Israel. Anyway, like I said at the beginning, quick and dirty.
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