It is incredible to me that this text was not reviewed by a competent and
unbiased and knowledgeable historian. I recall back in the 1970s working
directly with the Board of Education on its then new materials for 4th
graders and carefully evaluating how various controversial facts were
presented. It is very disturbing that this was not being done in this case.
Sadly it is a mind-set that far too many so-called scholars accept. Some of
it goes back to the lack of any sort of accreditation for historians.
Relying solely on a secondary source as questionable as the SCV who clearly
have a specific agenda is just plain wrong. Anyone can call themselves a
"historian," these days.
Margaret T. Peters
Historian with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources 1968-2002.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Kukla" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 9:04 AM
Subject: Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black
Confederate soldiers
*Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black Confederate
soldiers
*
By Kevin Sieff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
A textbook distributed to Virginia fourth-graders says that thousands of
African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War -- a claim
rejected by most historians but often made by groups seeking to play down
slavery's role as a cause of the conflict.
The passage appears in "Our Virginia: Past and Present," which was
distributed in the state's public elementary schools for the first time last
month. The author, Joy Masoff, who is not a trained historian but has
written several books, said she found the information about black
Confederate soldiers primarily through Internet research, which turned up
work by members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Scholars are nearly unanimous in calling these accounts of black Confederate
soldiers a misrepresentation of history. Virginia education officials, after
being told by The Washington Post of the issues related to the textbook,
said that the vetting of the book was flawed and that they will contact
school districts across the state to caution them against teaching the
passage.
"Just because a book is approved doesn't mean the Department of Education
endorses every sentence," said spokesman Charles Pyle. He also called the
book's assertion about black Confederate soldiers "outside mainstream Civil
War scholarship."
Masoff defended her work. "As controversial as it is, I stand by what I
write," she said. "I am a fairly respected writer."
The issues first came to light after College of William & Mary historian
Carol Sheriff opened her daughter's copy of "Our Virginia" and saw the
reference to black Confederate soldiers.
"It's disconcerting that the next generation is being taught history based
on an unfounded claim instead of accepted scholarship," Sheriff said. "It
concerns me not just as a professional historian but as a parent."
Virginia, which is preparing to mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning
of the Civil War, has long struggled to appropriately commemorate its
Confederate past. The debate was reinvigorated this spring, when Gov. Robert
F. McDonnell (R) introduced "Confederate History Month" in Virginia
without mentioning slavery's role in the Civil War. He later apologized.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group of male descendants of Confederate
soldiers based in Columbia, Tenn., has long maintained that substantial
numbers of black soldiers fought for the South The group's
historian-in-chief, Charles Kelly Barrow, has written the book "Black
Confederates."
The Sons of Confederate Veterans also disputes the widely accepted
conclusion that the struggle over slavery was the main cause of the Civil
War. Instead, the group says, the war was fought "to preserve their homes
and livelihood," according to John Sawyer, chief of staff of the Sons of
Confederate Veterans' Army of Northern Virginia. He said the group was
pleased that a state textbook accepted some of its views.
The state's curriculum requires textbook publishers and educators to explore
the role African Americans played in the Confederacy, including their work
on plantations and on the sidelines of battle. Those standards have evolved
in recent years to make lessons on the Civil War more inclusive in a state
that is growing increasingly diverse.
When Masoff began work on the textbook, she said she consulted a variety of
sources -- history books, experts and the Internet. But when it came to one
of the Civil War's most controversial themes -- the role of African
Americans in the Confederacy -- she relied primarily on an Internet search.
The book's publisher, Five Ponds Press, based in Weston, Conn., sent a Post
reporter three of the links Masoff found on the Internet. Each referred to
work by Sons of the Confederate Veterans or others who contend that the
fight over slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War.
In its short lesson on the roles that whites, African Americans and Indians
played in the Civil War, "Our Virginia" says, "Thousands of Southern blacks
fought in the Confederate ranks, including two black battalions under the
command of Stonewall Jackson."
Masoff said of the assertion: "It's just one sentence. I don't want to
ruffle any feathers. If the historians had contacted me and asked me to take
it out, I would have."
She added that the book was reviewed by a publisher's advisory council of
educators and that none of the advisers objected to the textbook's
assertion.
Historians from across the country, however, said the sentence about
Confederate soldiers was wrong or, at the least, overdrawn. They expressed
concerns not only over its accuracy but over the implications of publishing
an assertion so closely linked to revisionist Confederate history.
"It's more than just an arcane, off-the-wall problem," said David Blight, a
professor at Yale University. "This isn't just about the legitimacy of the
Confederacy, it's about the legitimacy of the emancipation itself."
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson of Princeton University
said, "These Confederate heritage groups have been making this claim for
years as a way of purging their cause of its association with slavery."
Masoff said one of her sources was Ervin Jordan, a University of Virginia
historian who said he has documented evidence -- in the form of 19th-century
newspapers and personal letters -- of some African Americans fighting for
the Confederacy. But in an interview, Jordan said the account in the
fourth-grade textbook went far beyond what his research can support.
"There's no way of knowing that there were thousands," Jordan said. "And the
claim about Jackson is totally false. I don't know where that came from."
The book also survived the Education Department's vetting and was ruled
"accurate and unbiased" by a committee of content specialists and teachers.
Five Ponds Press has published 14 books that are used in the Virginia public
school system, all of them written by Masoff.
Masoff also wrote "Oh Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty" and "Oh
Yikes! History's Grossest Moments."
==============
Jon Kukla
________________
www.JonKukla.com <http://www.jonkukla.com/>
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