Did you learn about US slavery and segregation in K-12 school?

I grew up in the ‘60s in Oakland.
We learned about slavery early. We learned about the underground railroad, the capture of Africans and the story of the Amistadt, the Civil War, it’s causes and effects.
But I never heard about Juneteenth till at least the ‘80s.

Not much at all from my recollection, junior high history was probably the first memory of discussing slavery and even then it was like ‘this happened and it’s over’.

In the 80’s it was hip to be black, to act, talk and dress black, so to us slavery was really just a past historical event with no significance to our daily lives. None of my black friends or neighbors discussed it or prejudice or anything like that at all.

Frankly, my entire life it’s been ‘cool’ to appropriate black culture.

No. I found that out from watching PBS as a child.

@KNOWITALL So, you didn’t learn about the underground railroad, Harriet Tubman, or the Emancipation Proclamation just to name a few things. I feel like I learned a lot about slavery, but less about segregation, but it was still taught to some extent.

@JLeslie Not at a young age, no. Probably junior high and hs, but honestly not that much.

I actually hated history because I found it so boring and (forgive me) white-washed. My grandmother was a Cherokee and history buff who was extremely disappointed in our curriculum.

@KNOWITALL I hated history and found boring and difficult to remember. I did very poorly in history. I am shocked at how much I learned and remember. I learned about it in jr. high and high school. I don’t think we learned about it at a younger age. In elementary school we did learn the golden rule and we did the exercise when the class is told brown eyed people are better than blue eyed people. I don’t know if they still do it. I think of that as more lessons about treating each other equally and that outward appearance means nothing. That is different than learning about history in my mind.

I remember reading and then seeing the movie To Kill a Mocking Bird in school. What grade was that? It did not sink in for me that it was a race issue story. I was bored with that story when I had to read it also.

@JLeslie I did poorly as well and now I can’t get enough of it.

I first heard about slavery and the abolition movement when I was about twelve or thirteen in classes on UK history. I don’t remember it making much of an impact on me, it was just something else to be learned.

My 8th grade history teacher made us pick cotton while watching the movie Roots.

Yes.

High School history taught us about slavery and the abolition movement. What we learned was pretty accurate, but I don’t think we learned enough. There was no mention of Jim Crow laws and the ongoing fight for civil rights. I did already know much of what was taught through watching documentaries and movies.

High School history was a real yawner and I’m afraid I didn’t really pay that much attention to anything that was taught to me in that class.

I learned about slavery and segregation early on. It wasn’t taught as a bright spot in our nation’s history. It was more taught as something that was wrong…discriminating against someone strictly based on their skin color. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we didn’t have many black kids in my early schools so I didn’t feel one way or another towards them. I say maybe fortunately because in 9th grade we moved to another school district that was about a 50/50 mix of black and white kids. I made some good friends that were black. I saw nothing wrong with them at all. Just like every other “group” of kids, there were good and bad apples.
But it was there that I first experienced systemic reverse discrimination. The school, in fear of claims of racism, had a policy that said if a black student and a white student got into a fight, the black student could not be really punished, regardless of the cause of the fight. I saw on specific fight were the black kid started the fight and the white kid was only defending himself. The black kid was sent back to class, the white kid was suspended for 3 days.

@seawulf Same at my high school.

I was taught a lot on slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. But very little about segregation.

Even though I was in California, discussing segregation was a little too close to home for a city that didn’t want Willie Mays to live in the “nice part’ of town.

It might be helpful to know in everyone’s answers, where they grew up.

^^ I grew up in California.

I have always known about slavery, and learned details of the Civil Rights movement when I was eleven years old, in sixth grade. in school. That was 1976; the 1975–1976 school year.

About half of the teachers and about 30% of the students were African American. The correct term at the time was ‘Afro-American’—and the rest of us were white. Students voluntarily segregated themselves but we did not hate each other.

7th, 8th and 9th grade had more racial strife in the school I was in, but by 10th grade, we were all basically one student body (early 1980s).

I grew up in the suburbs of New York City in New York State until I was 9, and then suburbs of DC in Maryland after that.

In NY I remember one incident in first grade where a white kid said something about how Black people used to be slaves and my first reaction was that sounds like a lie. As I think about it I realize that when I was young I was usually very gullible, and boys would tell me things and I would believe what they said, but this sounded impossible to me immediately. When I didn’t believe him he asked the teacher and she confirmed it. The Black boy in our class was in earshot of this conversation, I knew he heard by his stare and expression. It made me feel terrible.

We were of course taught about it, but here is what is crucial. The topic would arise in American history courses, but the actual consequences and subsequent long term effects were perfunctorily neglected. Now this is by no means the only crucial topic necessarily neglected in what is probably the single survey course to which the average kid will be exposed, but there can be little doubt it is the reason that so many of us can actually witness the racial tensions in the country wondering “what’s all the fuss about?” and what are these rabble rousers complaining about THIS TIME?

@stanleybmanly I’m not sure when I was a kid if people really even understood the long term effects.

I recently saw Soledad O’Brien interview Dr. Steven Kniffley, Jr. an expert in generational trauma, which can be observed in the Black community because of oppression, slavery, and other abuses.

He spoke about how groups with this trauma use compartmentalizations as a way of coping. They also tend to be hyper vigilant, higher anxiety, and more sadness. He pointed out Jewish people have the same commonalities, which I appreciated.

It’s not just how it affects the people, but also how it affects overall society, which is maybe what you actually meant by your comment? I’ve lived in the South, and it does feel like the effects of slavery and segregation still have lingering effects. I am not saying it’s all racism, it’s way more complex than that. I think most Americans aren’t racist. It’s more ethnocentrism and xenophobia from what I can tell.

I agree, and the primary reason for those lingering difficulties is exemplified precisely in poor wulfie’s take on the world. There are times when I am convinced that he is putting me on. No one could possibly navigate life in the United States convinced that slavery in this country is not a matter of racism. And this from a resident supposedly born and reared deep in Dixie. It boggles the mind. And if ever the argument presented itself on the primal urgency of the need for teaching critical race theory, there will never be a poster boy more suitable than our wulf.

@stanleybmanly I think it’s partly a communications issue. I think he defines racism differently than you would.

@sorry I grew up in the Midwest, and my dad worked on the railroad. We rode the train everywhere. And I have vivid memories of the time we took the train from Omaha to Oklahoma. We transferred trains in Kansas City. And it was fascinating that as the train passed from Kansas into Oklahoma, a conductor walked through the car. He was young, polite and red with embarrassment as he passed through the car informing the black individuals and families that they could no longer remain in this coach and would have to move to the car 2 coaches back. Id spent my entire childhood riding the train and I blurted out to my mother “what’s he talking about?” To which she just harshly replied “SHUSH! Shut up!”. When the train slowed as it pulled into the station in Muskogee as I stared out the window the station slid slowly by and there on the wall beyond the platform were 2 bubbly water fountains and above them in large black letters on white signs were the words WHITE above one and Colored on the other. The train had barely stopped when I hit the platform. I had to see this and raced over to get a look at the colored water. The bubbler worked just like all the other bubblers of my childhood, but I was pissed at the fraud as plain old water flew up from the thing and it was warm from the Summer heat. By the time my mother arrived to snatch me away, I had moved to the other fountain to check out the white water—gypped again!

@JLeslie How can you claim to have received and education, then declare slavery in America a false characterization of racism?

@stanleybmanly A famous basketball coach (can’t think of his babe now) wrote a biography talking about when his family left the South by train to move to California. His father had finally decided if they did not leave he was going to wind up hanging from a tree either. The author talked about changing trains in St. Louis I think? They had headed north out of the South and then changed trains to go west to California. He remembered when he realized the train to California didn’t have separate cars for white and Black people.

Where was that said that slavery was not because of racism? Do you mean the argument that slavery was just economic? Obviously, slavery is racist.

No. It was on another thread here where Demosthenes asked “ what should k through 12 students learn about racism?” The whole thing is rather appalling in its implications.

@JLeslie Tell me his name and we can find out who his babe was.

@Yellowdog Whose name?

The famous basketball player whom you couldn’t think of his babe now.

This discussion IS and has ALWAYS been about slavery in the United States. As for our conversation. That is on the record for any and all to see thereby judging for themselves who clocked whom and which of us presents the SENSIBLE case.