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Education is the process of transformation of the uninformed and unskilled into the informed and skilled. It is a process that aids the development of every human being, community, and society. For this reason, the approach taken by educators for selecting the study information and presenting it to learners has a significant impact on the learning outcomes. James Lowen’s in his book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American Textbook Got Wrong explores the political and patriotic considerations as the main causes of underrating the role of DeBois, Niagara Movement, and NAACP in the Civil Right Movement and their omission or misrepresentation in the history textbooks.
Taking into account the state control over the educational content, it can be stated that the historical textbooks undergo the influence of the political leaders and can distort certain facts and even omit the whole historical epochs. For this reason, the political leaders are frequently represented as perfect individuals, whereas the distorted and fragmented information can keep children in dark. Another reason for distorting the historical data is the patriotic motives. Loewen states that “textbooks are often muddled by the conflicting desires to promote inquiry and to indoctrinate patriotism” (Loewen, 336). The nation as a whole wants to build a spirit of patriotism among the young generation, thus attempts are made to glorify history and present a positive picture of a nation embedded in morality and honest actions. Until recently, the history of the African Americans but for the issue of slavery was neglected in the academic courses. Thus, children were deprived of opportunities to learn about the actual events and have a complex view of the historical processes in the country. However, the sudden incorporation of this part of history into the school curricula had adverse effects on the learning outcomes. The misrepresentation of particular aspects of African American history in the academic textbooks caused the students’ confusion and misunderstanding of the events.
The internal debate between some of our great civil rights leaders, the actual events that led to the Civil Rights Movement, and the goals of this movement are only briefly mentioned in history textbooks. According to the majority of historical textbooks, the Civil Rights Movement grew out of the period of segregation when African Americans did not have equal rights with white people. For example, the blacks were obliged to attend separate schools in segregated neighborhoods which frequently provided inferior education, use separate toilets, sit at the back of the buses and suffer from other types of discriminative behavior of the privileged white population. Even though the above-mentioned facts are true, and the Civil Rights Movement was meant to end the racial discrimination against African Americans, this was not the only issue at hand. It also tried to bring forth full economic and social equality, and today it is considered as an influential movement the implications of which continue to affect African Americans today. And according to Williams “The impact of the civil rights movement on race relations and the nation’s social fabric was indeed monumental” (Williams, 54).
The role of DuBois, as the first African American to receive a Ph. D from Harvard and one of the founders of the Niagara Movement and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in history if the Civil Right Movement is frequently understated in the history textbooks. The Niagara Movement lasted for about a decade and was ended because of organizational problems, the lack of funding, and central leadership. Still, its importance for the success of the Civil Rights Movement cannot be understated and omission of this important historical fact in academic courses is inappropriate. One more reason for the premature end of the Niagara Movement was the disagreement between DuBois and Booker Washington, another influential leader of the organization. The main difference between the leaders was in the methods they offered for putting an end to the racial discrimination: DuBois suggested more radical measures and demanded equal rights, while Washington insisted on preserving the positive relationships with the whites and was inclined even to ignore the issues of discrimination. The fact that after the split of the Niagara Movement, DuBois founded the NAACP proves that he was consistent and made an important contribution to the Civil Rights Movement in general, and these details need to be incorporated into the academic courses.
DuBois believed that the vital role that African Americans have played in world history “should be founded on knowledge of the history of their people and their present conditions” (DuBois, The World and Africa, 228). This claim of the outstanding leader of the Civil Rights Movement should be implemented for incorporating this fragment of the history of African Americans into the academic courses and exploring the contributions of DuBois and his confederates to the triumph of democratic values and end of racial discrimination.
Works Cited
DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History. New York: International Publishers, 1965. Print.
Higbee, Mark. “W. E. B. DuBois and the problems of the twentieth century: Race, history, and literature in DuBois’s political thought, 1903-1940”. Diss. Columbia University, 1995. Print.
Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2008. Print.
Williams, Yohuru “No Haven: From Civil Rights to Black Power in New Haven, Connecticut”. The Black Scholar 2002, 31: 54-66. Print.
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