Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Thursday 24 augusT 2017
Civil War lessons often depend on where the classroom is

sible odds, and that slavery whites who did not con-
was not the driving force sider themselves Southern.
behind the war. Edward The president of the Texas
Countryman, a history pro- NAACP said finding “kind-
fessor at Southern Method- er” ways to describe the
ist University in Dallas, said war’s origins masks racism.
he learned that idea grow- “States’ rights is about the
ing up in New York state in whole idea of permitting
the 1950s. slavery and allowing the
“I recall my father coming South to do what they do,
home when I was about 8 or, after slavery, to allow
or 9 with two Civil War caps, the South to engage in Jim
one’s gray and one’s blue. Crow,” Gary Bledsoe said.
“You can’t sanitize history
and have history report
In this Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, that master and slave were
photo, a Confederate plaque
is displayed near the Rotunda out there singing ‘Kumba-
in the Texas State Capitol in ya’ in the fields.”
Austin, Texas. Texas has 178 confeder-
Associated Press ate monuments. Only Vir-
ginia has more, with 223,
according to the Southern
By WILL WEISSERT speak to folks around the “misconception” that slav- And I wanted the gray Poverty Law Center, a civil
Associated Press country, what kind of as- ery was the cause of the one,” Countryman said. rights advocacy group.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The sumptions they have about war. “The belief, strongly, that Democratic state Rep. Eric
Civil War lessons taught things like the Civil War,” The real origin, he was told, the Civil War had been Johnson, meanwhile, is de-
to American students of- said Dustin Kidd, a sociol- could be traced to groups about anything but slavery manding the removal of a
ten depend on where the ogy professor at Temple of colonists from England was very, very powerful.” nearly 60-year-old plaque
classroom is, with schools University in Philadelphia. who despised each other A 2011 Pew Research Cen- rejecting slavery as the Civil
presenting accounts of Lessons on the war and its long before the rebel- ter poll found that 48 per- War’s “underlying cause.”
the conflict that vary from causes usually begin in the lion began in 1861. Not cent of Americans said the Republican House Speaker
state to state and even dis- fifth through eighth grades. until graduate school did Civil War was mainly about Joe Straus has called for
trict to district. That means attitudes to- checking the accuracy of
Some schools emphasize ward the war may be in- that plaque and nearly a
states’ rights in addition fluenced by what people dozen other Confederate
to slavery and stress how learned at an age when
economic and cultural many were choosing a fa-
differences stoked ten- vorite color or imagining In this Monday, Aug. 21, 2017,
sions between North and what they wanted to be photo, the Texas State Capi-
South. Others highlight when they grew up. tol Confederate Monument
the battlefield acumen of The effect may not be ob- stands on the south lawn in
Confederate command- vious until a related issue Austin, Texas.
ers alongside their Union is thrust into the spotlight Associated Press
counterparts. At least one like this month’s violence
suggests that abolition rep- in Charlottesville, Virginia,
resented the first time the and the resulting backlash he begin to question that states’ rights, compared symbols located around
nation lived up to its found- against Confederate sym- premise. with 38 percent who said the state Capitol alone.
ing ideals. bols. Confederate sympathiz- its main cause was slav- When curriculum stan-
ery. Nine percent said both dards were approved in
factors were equal. 2010 by Texas’ Republican-
The divide in opinions broke controlled Board of Educa-
down more by race than tion, debate focused on
geography. Forty-eight slavery being a Civil War
percent of whites chose “after issue.”
states’ rights over slavery, The state’s fifth- and sev-
while 39 percent of blacks enth-graders taking Texas
did. history courses, and eighth-
graders taking U.S. history,
In this Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, are now asked to iden-
photo, the Terry’s Texas Rang- tify the causes of the war,
ers cavalry monument, a regi- “including sectionalism,
ment of Texas volunteers for the states’ rights and slavery.”
Confederate States Army as- Eighth-graders also com-
sembled by Colonel Benjamin pare ideas from Abraham
Franklin Terry in August 1861, is
silhouetted against the Texas Lincoln’s inaugural address
State Capitol in Austin, Texas. with those from Confed-
Associated Press erate President Jefferson
Davis’ inaugural address,
which did not mention slav-
The differences don’t al- Growing up in Charlot- ers have long promoted But 49 percent of self-de- ery and instead endorsed
ways break down neatly tesville, Kidd said, he was the “Lost Cause” theory scribed Southern whites small-government values
along geographic lines. taught that “folks from the that the Southern side chose states’ rights com- still popular with many con-
“You don’t know, as you North” had put forward the was heroic against impos- pared with 48 percent of servatives today.q