What do NY kids learn about our racist history? And what do you know?
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| Kesha James | Shane Wiegand |
We’ve seen enormous cultural wars in some states over teaching about racism and slavery in the US. New York has escaped the vitriol, but that doesn’t mean our curriculums are great. Most of us know that slavery happened in the south and that Jim Crow happened in the south and lynching happened in the south. You’d think there was never any racial problem in New York at all. The Antiracist Curriculum Project, hosted by PathStone, and co-led by Rochester educators Kesha James and Shane Wiegand, is working to change that. They have developed lesson plans for K-12 teachers covering the history of slavery in New York as well as racist policies in the 20th century which have made residential segregation deeply entrenched. They also teach about the resistance to slavery and racism.
In 2022, the League of Women Voters of the Rochester Metro Area invited Kesha and Shane to tell us about their curriculum. We learned a lot and gave them our Making Democracy Work award. We believe that the information they’ve put together for school kids needs to be learned by adults as well, because we need information on the source of our problems to be able to solve them.
In Session 1 (April 17, 7PM-8:30PM), they will teach us about slavery in New York. Yes, we had it! It provided the bas...
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