Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Maureen Davis-White | San Diego, CA
Lessons from the Color of Law including redlining and our government’s active racism in zoning, lending and segregating based on the color of your skin should be taught as well. We all need to learn from the past, so we can move towards a truly equal society who embraces diversity of all kinds v
Andrea Foroughi | Schenectady, NY
Anonymous | Providence, RI
Nick Bertram | Oregon City, OR
Understanding the civil rights movement of the 1950s & 1960s is much easier with a historical foundation that begins with the broken promises, violence, and anti-democratic disenfranchisement legislation of Reconstruction.
Sarah Connelly | Winter Garden, FL
Ashley Kannan | Oak Park, IL
We struggle mightily with connecting what is happening in our classroom to what is happening in the world outside of it. We lose students because of our failure to meet this challenge. Centering Reconstruction in such a way as to serve as a bridge between both worlds can help us find success where it is sorely needed.
Gery Gerst | Olympia, WA
Without Reconstruction, and the century long struggle that followed over the 14th, the story of the Civil War is hollow. 1865 is but the end of battle, and the military victory of the North... but Reconstruction is about the CULTURE war that followed/began. Without that study kids can't understand the Civil Rights movement, the statues controversy, Red-lining, Tulsa 1921, ETC. Without that narrative they can't understand and appreciate Hiram Revels, the KKK, Ida B. Wells, or the Diaspora. It's like getting 1/3 of the way through a book then dumping it right now; the story wasn't over in 1865...so the history taught shouldn't be either.
Marian Killian | Petaluma, CA
We need to teach the Reconstruction era legislation and the derailing of all that legislation to give K-12 students the intellectual skills they need for citizenship, voting and civic engagement in this hot mess of a country. I would say that the failure to teach the reconstruction era (to my baby boomer era high school students) left a huge vacuum in my thinking that allowed me a kind of "magical thinking", allowed me to equate the neo-liberal Obama presidency with a "post racial" America.
Alison Brown | Berkeley, CA
Morgan Pflederer | Chicago, IL
Sarah Hollingsworth | Campbell, CA
Christine Clark | Henderson, NV
Alma Rodríguez | Brooklyn
It is important to teach Reconstruction so that students can make connections to today’s social and political landscape. They can understand how inequality was institutionalized into law systems in the south and beyond. They can also see our urgent need to correct these inequities that have unfortunately persevered from even before the civil war.
Anonymous | Williston Town of, VT
Connie Allison | Geneva, NY
Patricia Cooper | Vincent, IA
US students need to understand Reconstruction to understand the history of white supremacy ideology in our country and all that was lost when Reconstruction ended. We witness how citizenship rights were gained then swiftly eliminated. Only with this awareness can students comprehend why our caste system continues today.
Kate Crist | Reno, NV
Michael Levin | Berwyn, IL
Rosemary Herold | Mount Pleasant, SC
Crystal Feimster | New Haven, CT
Sariah Winn | Phoenix, AZ
Laura Murphy | Poughkeepsie, NY
Curtis Austin | Chandler, AZ
Christopher Knaus | Seattle, WA
Danica Dawkins | Holly Springs, MS
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