Column by Ken Plum
www.kenplum.com
My studies in history and political science at the institution that is now Old DominionUniversity were eye-opening, exciting and fulfilling, but my resulting bachelor of arts degree did not provide me any specific career training.
That is why I entered a master in education program at the University of Virginia where I was placed as an intern teacher in Fairfax County in 1967. My teaching of United States and Virginia history was at a pivotal time in the teaching of history. The civil-rights movement that was having an impact on society generally was also having an influence on the teaching of history.
In my classroom I was given Rise of the American Nation as the state-approved textbook. As it turned out, I had two editions of the same textbook. The edition of the 1950s explained 1619 as being an important year for the Virginia colony because a representative assembly met for the first time, women came to the colony, and Negro slaves were brought to the colony. The mid-’60s edition of the same textbook explained the importance of 1619 as the representative assembly meeting, women coming to the colony, and Africans who came as indentured servants were later enslaved. I had students read both accounts because it provided an important lesson in the writing of history.
Teaching social studies and history in Virginia was challenging because the textbooks provided were published under the direction of the Virginia History and Textbook Commission, a political body established to maintain the values and beliefs of the segregated Old South. The 11th-grade Virginia history and government textbook, Cavalier Commonwealth, was shocking in its distortions of history. According to the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Vol. 117, No. 4, Virginia Historical Society) that was just published, the textbook sparked national outrage by claiming that “the slave enjoyed what we might call comprehensive social security.” I turned to source materials that I collected on my own rather than use the provided textbooks.
To learn more about the political establishment’s attempt to control the writing and studying of history in Virginia, go to the current issue of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and read the article, “Who Controls the Past Controls the Future: The Virginia History Textbook Controversy.” You may be shocked to learn the extent to which there was an effort to control the telling of the state’s history. Fortunately, the Textbook Commission no longer exists having been abandoned in the 1970s. I was pleased to take part in the writing of a Virginia history textbook in Fairfax County that was later adopted statewide. It was neither directed nor approved by the Textbook Commission. It reflected an honest attempt to tell the true story of Virginia with its glories and its warts. The government should never write the history books our students use.
Ken Plum is the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He represents the 36th District in the House of Delegates.
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