How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

by Clint Smith

In April 2018, eighth graders at Great Hearts Monte Vista North charter school in San Antonio were asked to complete a worksheet titled “The Life of Slaves: A Balanced View,” which had two columns in which the students were meant to write the “positive” elements of slavery in one and the “negative” elements in the other. A textbook that had been used at the school included a description of how slavery included “kind and generous owners” and enslaved people who “may not have even been terribly unhappy.” The Texas State Board of Education has since revised the standards so that, across the state, slavery is understood to have played a “central role” in causing the Civil War.