Teach More About Slavery Please
U.S slavery is not being discussed enough in American schools.
The hymns that are sang in black churches, especially in the south, stem from the hymns slaves used to keep their spirits up or that contained encoded routes to the north. Even the concept of black churches, the very religion itself, stems from slavery. New slaves weren’t Christian as the majority of blacks are today; slavery represents a mass conversion of blacks to Christianity.
Even the reason behind the fact that blacks are about 13 percent of the population but 73 percent of the NBA and 65 percent of the NFL has its roots buried deep within the act of slavery. Slave owners bred the biggest and strongest slaves like livestock to produce “superslaves” that were more suitable for market. Black history began with slavery, not the Civil Rights Movement, anal high schools should teach it as such.
High schools also ignore the important role slavery played in building the United States. In the beginning, the cheap labor slavery provided was like steroids to the budding nation. With the economy of the early U.S. reliant on agriculture, mainly tobacco, producing large quantities of product was essential to the survival of the nation. Because of the inefficiency and ease for rebellion among white and native-American slaves and indentured servants, a ship packed with African indentured servants, traded for food, in 1619 provided the “perfect” solution.
The African indentured servants soon lost their limited rights and slavery was born to the unfit parents of the southern colonies. Slavery never really caught on in the northern states because of the lack of agriculture, but the south relied heavily on slave labor deep into the 19th century.
I’m in no way condoning slavery or trying to glorify it in anyway; I’m simply stating it’s importance in the rapid development of our country. Even if the authors of the high school history books and the creators of the curriculum’s choose to attempt to ignore the shame of American slavery, if should still somehow make its way into the history books because if the captain of that ship hadn’t been running short of food on that day in 1619, the progress of the future nation would have been slowed significantly.
Even though American slavery is the most shameful period in United States history, it cannot be overlooked in the nations high schools. The topic is much too important to not be taught in depth I high schools. It is especially important to black children since we can only trace our heritage back to slavery. Our African culture was lost the moment our ancestors were forcefully separated from their native land. By not teaching slavery in high schools, America is once again separating blacks from our heritage, and denying white kids an important part of their country’s history.
Liked it
