Editorial: Teaching the history of the civil rights movement still essential

Many people born after the 1960s associate the civil rights movement with a few stock images:… Many people born after the 1960s associate the civil rights movement with a few stock images: marches, fire hoses and, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. delivering speeches. Too often, however, the story behind these snapshots is poorly understood.

The Southern Poverty Law Center believes it’s discovered the source of our superficial knowledge: negligent public schools. In a newly released report, the anti-discrimination group evaluated how much states’ educational standards emphasize the civil rights movement and then graded them accordingly on a scale of A through F. Appallingly, 35 states, including Pennsylvania, received F’s. (Only New York, Alabama and Florida, all of which mandate teaching the subject, earned A’s).

Although some academics protest that state standards are sparse by necessity — lack of detail, they argue, grants individual school districts more freedom to tailor lesson plans — there’s no disputing other evidence of historical illiteracy. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, for instance, high school seniors were asked to read an excerpt from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that included the phrase, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Only 2 percent were then able to identify that a school segregation case prompted the ruling.

Astounding as all this sounds, it’s easy to see why teaching the civil rights movement might not be a state’s top educational priority: Our president is black and  black Americans occupy top offices in countless professions. Whenever public figures make racist remarks, they’re swiftly and surely condemned. In our enlightened — or, in the words of certain pundits, “post-racial” — era, why reopen old wounds?

Simply put: Because the wounds have yet to heal, and because there are other civil rights crises that have yet to be resolved.

The state of black rights, though improved, is far from ideal. According to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau statistics, roughly one in 10 young black men are in prison — far more, percentage-wise, than other ethnicities. More troubling still, a 2004 Cornell study found that blacks who murder whites receive the highest rate of death sentences across the board, as opposed to, for instance, whites who murder blacks. Put succinctly, although we no longer segregate fountains or ask that blacks move to the back of the bus, institutionalized racism still exists. In order to eradicate it, it’s necessary to examine the precedent previous leaders have set.

There are other demographics whose causes are only now gaining traction and who would also benefit from a study of the civil rights movement. The obvious example here is the LGBTQ community, which has only been able to make definitive strides towards equal treatment in the past few years — most recently with the repeals of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and heterosexual-only marriage in New York. Even still, certain politicians, like former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, champion a reinstatement of some of these measures; a large portion of their constituencies would likely support this.

Proponents of other causes, such as women’s rights and animal rights, have even more to accomplish. New injustices, new fights continually present themselves, demanding action and legislation. The civil rights movement — which was a significant, although not unconditional, success — provides a model of effecting change that could inform any struggle.

“History,” Mark Twain is rumored to have quipped, “Doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” We might never experience anything identical to the civil rights movement, but we are indisputably in the midst of other social battles. Until all institutionalized racism is purged from society and until all oppressed peoples enjoy equal treatment under the law, teaching students about that turbulent mid-century period will remain essential.