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A clip of a painting by Aaron Douglas titled "Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction." A man stands in a field holding a candle, pointing to the silhoutte of a building on a hill. Others in the field are look towards where he poinst while picking cotton. To the far right, figures stand with their arms stretched towards the sky while soldiers march in the background.

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Zinn Education Project | Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction

This national report was released on January 2022 as a part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach Reconstruction Campaign. It represents a comprehensive effort by the Zinn Education Project to understand Reconstruction’s place in state social studies standards across the United States, examine the nature and extent of the barriers to teaching effective Reconstruction history, and make focused recommendations for improvement.

Using its Reconstruction standards as a guide, the Zinn Education Project examined course requirements, frameworks, and support for teachers from 2019 to 2021. It also included stories about creative efforts by districts and/or individual teachers in each state to teach outside the textbook about Reconstruction.

A 44-page PDF of the report is available for download at this link. Visit the website for archival materials, additional links to education materials, and an interactive web version of the report.