NPR is reporting that nearly three-quarters of states fail at teaching the civil rights movement, according to a study released by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The study assigned 35 states a grade of "F". Only three states — Alabama, New York and Florida — received an "A".
Here's how the study's authors sum it up:
"Rather than recognizing the profound national significance of the civil rights movement, most states mistakenly see it as a regional matter, or a topic of interest mainly for black students. Nine of the 12 highest-scoring states are from the former Confederacy. They are joined by the states of Illinois, Maryland, and New York.
Generally speaking, the farther away from the South — and the smaller the African-American population — the less attention is paid to the civil rights movement.
Imagine if children in Texas, California and Minnesota were exempted from lessons on the American Revolution — or if students in Alaska, Hawaii and Montana got a pass on the Civil War. We all recognize that the American Revolution and the Civil War are critical events in our growth as a nation, important for all students to study. It is time to recognize that the civil rights movement, too, is one of those critical events that defines us as a nation. It is a recent and important reminder of how individual self-governing Americans can act collectively to correct grave injustice."
Hopefully the study's findings will result in a change in the curricula. No child in this country can be considered educated if he or she learns nothing about the civil rights era.
Read more at NPR.
In other news: 'The Submission': A Play That Delivers Race's Sound and Fury.