Midmorning With Aundrea - February 20, 2020 (Part 2)

(Part 2 of 2) As we celebrate Black History Month, some historians are taking issue with the way key historical events are presented in classroom textbooks.

Du during black history month, students around the nation are learning about icons of the civil rights movement.

But beyond those lessons, a cbs news analysis found some ámajor problemsá in the way students are being taught about important moments in american history.

Jericka duncan has been looking into it.

Ibram x.

Kendi cbs news contributor 13-20 keven ellis chair, texas state board of education 2:55-3:00 // 4:02-4:11 --- is there a problem with how we teach american history in this country?

Yes.

Renowned scholar dr. ibram x kendi ácan'tá believe what students are learning about america's past.

Reviewing these texts closely now i can see why so many students get to college and they're like why didn't we learn this in high school, because it isn't in these texts.

We asked kendi--a c-b-s news contributor--to take a look at four textbooks used in public school classrooms. the first book, "th american pageant," is used to teach advanced placement history.

The publisher of the book says more than 5 million students learn from it each year.

We looked at the 16th edition of the book published in 20-16.

So here on page 346, it says in the deeper south, many free blacks were mulattos.

The term mulatto is a racist slur, against biracial people.

The book also includes this map, referring to enslaved africans in á1775á as "immigrants alongside the dutch, the scottish and the german.

To refer to them again as immigrants insinuates that they chose to come // the african people who almost totally were forced to come and certainly did not want to come to the united states in chains.

Just to see if things have changed, we looked at the latest edition of this book published this year&the map is still there.

The assignment asked students to put a price on slaves.

What and how students learn about history is different everywhere--and sometimes problematic.

The teacher whi is white told them to write "funn captions" o images of freed slaves.

There are reports the teacher made black studct as slaves.

There is no national standard for what history is taught.

Each state sets standards which outlines what students are expected to learn.

C-b-s news took a look at the social studies standards for all 50 states and the district of columbia.

We found ásevená states do not directly mention slavery ---and eight do not mention the civil rights movement.

Only two states mention white supremacy and 16 list ástatesá rights as a cause of the civil war, which kendi says is a problem.

This was the term that the confederate states, that later segregationists, and even some slaveholders utilized to hide that they were really fighting for the rights of slaveholders.

Keven ellis is the chair of the texas state board of education, about 10 percent of the nation's students attend a texas public school.

In 2018, the state changed its standards to teach slavery as the central cause of the civil war, but it still mentions states' rights.

Should states' rights even be taught at all?

So i think that even when you look at states' rights it focused around slavery.

And so what we are doing now is just being clear that those states' rights, that the south was fighting over, was states' rights for them to have slavery.

Kendi also took a look at this textbook, "texa history," which i adopted by the state to teach middle school social studies.

It covers topics including slavery and the civil war.

This is a picture // and caption says some u.s. settlers brought slaves to texas to help work the fields and do chores // and i don't think we should describe slave labor as chores.

A few pages later...kendi pointed out this image.

The caption for this picture says // what characteristics of slave life does this image show?

// does this depict slavery?

If we were going to have a single picture that depicted slavery, it should be a picture that demonstrates terror and violence.

We also asked ellis what he thought about the picture.

: well i think one of--as we go through the struggles and the injustices that the slaves went through i think the important thing is not to do what was done in earlier times and make it sound like they were better off here then back in-- : --but this picture doesn't look so bad.

There's no marks on anyone's body // and this is supposed to represent enslaved people.

: i think the point that is being made is that this was not a true representation of what slaves went through and the injustices they went through.

// and i can't answer why that made that in that textbook // we have progressed in the past 5 years and 10 years and 20 years and we still have more work to do.

And i think this would be an example of that.

The publisher of that "texa history" book tol cbs news in a statement that it appreciates and values dr. kendi's analysis of the textbook.

And, they "are makin intentional changes to the content in future editions."

Cengage, the publisher of "th american pageant" said, "the author work strenuously to provide an accurate, fair and engrossing account of american history," and they are "always striving t improve.

They note the newest edition makes corrections and includes "first hand accounts from african americans of the time."

We'll be right that and more on the next midmorning.