I am a product of Florida public schools.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Why didn't I learn about the Trail Of Tears, Rosewood, and the Black Wall Street Riot?

[jimfields33]

1. Pennsylvania either.

[Guilded Lilly]

2. Pa. Public schools didn't mention squat in the sixties either. n/t

[Passenger]

3. I am not a "product" I am a human being n/t

[maxsolomon]

22. Welcome to DU

Hair Splitters will feel right at home.

[rownesheck]

4. Texas here.

Didn't learn about those either. But we learned about the "brave" and "courageous" defenders of the Alamo!

I'm glad Ozzie Osborne peed on it.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. We didn't learn about any of that in Missouri, either.

[AllaN01Bear]

6. knew about trail of tears in my school district . learned about the california concentration camps

much later. didnt know about the others mentioned untill now . as i said so much is buried or glossed over. america as we know it is a myth and there were some who tried to make it right.

[h2ebits]

20. +1000

[Elessar Zappa]

7. I learned about the Trail of Tears but not the other two.

I grew up in NM.

[spanone]

17. Same here, I grew up in Indiana.

[bamagal62]

8. Florida here. Learned none of that at all.

Just horrible that those events have been omitted. I didn’t know about some of these until recently.

[Chainfire]

16. The same here (50s-60s)

Our national history was Christian, pure and lily white. Indians were enemies, not victims. Confederate generals were heroes, people like M.L.K. were terrorists. I was an adult before I learned I started finding out that it was all a lie.

The school that I went to in Altha, Fl. played Dixie before the start of football games, and Lord have mercy on anybody who didn't remove their hats, and weren't quite and reverent during the playing. Our school, in a different small town, was integrated when I was in the 9th grade, and it was considered a horrible and disastrous event. It was unthinkable to sit by or eat with blacks. Integration led to the opening of two new "Christian Schools" in my small county, and the white kids who's parents had money flocked to them. Those kids became Republicans. That was my "normal."

I had a lot of unlearning to do.

[Glorfindel]

9. Good question. I went to public school in Georgia in the 1950's

and 1960's. We definitely learned about the Trail of Tears, because where I live is right in the middle of the area from which the Cherokees were removed. However, nothing was taught about Rosewood or the Black Wall Street Riot.

[-misanthroptimist]

10. Grew up in Upstate NY

Of those three, only the Trail of Tears was taught when I went to school.

[Deuxcents]

11. I am also a product of Florida public schools

Dade County, 1-12. We were not taught about these events, either. I’m sure it’s not being taught today.i hope I’m wrong.

[lark]

12. Because they don't teach it here as a general rule.

I had a rebellious social studies teacher who did talk in depth about the Trail of Tears and the way the Seminoles were treated (terribly).
He was constantly in trouble with the front office for teaching us radical things, like the difference between true socialism and communism. He even told us about the Black Wall St. Massacre.

The PTB didn't and still don't want us or our children or our children's children to know the truth about the rich white folks. They certainly didn't like my teacher one bit.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Because we live in a white supremacy.

[czarjak]

14. When your Dad was 16 and living in ME Oklahoma in 1921, you grow up learning.

[In It to Win It]

15. I am a product of Florida public schools also and I did learn about the trail of tears but...

not Rosewood and the Tulsa massacre. I will say that I specifically remember the Trail of Tears in my history book. There wasn’t much detail but it got a few mentions.

I learned about the Holocaust in school… and with lots of detail, images and documentaries. If the tragedy of the Holocaust can be taught in school, then the tragedies of the USA’s black community can be as well.

The Rosewood and Tulsa massacres were two events I learn about listening to a pop culture podcast and afterwards doing my own research.

As a southern black person whose family is from the backwoods of Georgia, I like to learn about the history of black people domestically and abroad, and with particular interest of black people in the United States’ South. In school, you get the usual MLK Jr, Malcolm X, segregation in the south, slavery, civil rights marches in the 60s and that’s about it.

Learning about that stuff really chokes you up.

That’s knowledge I want passed down. It should be taught in school. It’s apart of this country’s history no less than George Washington being our first POTUS or explorers “discovering” the Americas.

[MaryMagdaline]

18. In Georgia schools in the 1970's we had 3 pages on the Trail of Tears

Happened right on the ground where we were studying.

[h2ebits]

19. There is no one history book.

The questions really become: what state are you from, who was your history teacher, who wrote the history book(s) used in your state, who edited the history books, and, finally, at what point in time is an event considered to be history and have enough "historical value" to be included in the history book?

I'm 73 born and raised in Alexandria, VA.

My 5th grade teacher spent about 15-30 minutes immediately after lunch reading out loud to us. One of the books she read was "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

My 9th grade history teacher only nominally used the actual history book. His major interest was the 13 original colonies, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. We read a number of paperback books and discussed them such as: "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin." One memorable experience was a debate and I represented Patrick Henry. It changed my life. If you haven't ever read or heard the entire speech that ends with: "I know not what course other men take, but as for me GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH;" I suggest that you look it up today, stand up, and read it out loud.

About 10 years ago, a friend recommended that I read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." I cracked open the book to discover who Christopher Columbus really was rather than who we have heard him to be. That was when I understood why our indigenous population is working so hard to undo Columbus Day. The man was a greedy masochist and butcher as he worked his way across the lower part of this country into South America. I called my daughter-in-law who was born and raised in Florida to ask her if she had ever read or heard about Christopher Columbus. Yes, she had and would like to see Columbus Day removed from our holiday calendar. She also, BTW, was taught about the Trail of Tears.

Our history is pockmarked with criminality, racism, greed, and power struggles. Historians have/are investigating and documenting a more accurate record than what appears in the so called history books for schools. Change is needed.

[maxsolomon]

21. I'm a product of Ohio public schools.

"US History and Gubmint" was an 11th grade class that I took in 10th. Just getting some kids to understand the branches of Gubmint took a whole school year.

There's got to be room for American Genocides in there somewhere, but there's just so many.