Historian Makes Black Kids Act Out Slavery in Front of White Peers

There is a bit of an uproar in Charlotte, N.C., as parents, teachers and the local NAACP are livid over a civil war lesson that supposedly went wrong during a Rea View Elementary school class trip to Latta Plantation on Wednesday.

According to WSOCTV.com, Ian Campbell, a black historian, had three black students, already a racial minority in their class, model cotton-picking slaves, with bags around their necks, in front of their peers.

Kojo Nantambu, president of the NAACP in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, is one of many who believes the demonstration was both insensitive and poorly executed:

There is a lingering pain, a lingering bitterness, a lingering insecurity and a lingering sense of inhumanity since slavery. Because that's still there, you want to be more sensitive than politically correct or historically correct.

Campbell, though, begs to differ. As a historian of 15 years, he argues that he has had kids partake in demonstrations before, and this is the first time there has been a complaint. Campbell also believes he is being historically accurate:

I am very enthusiastic about getting kids to think about how people did things in 1860, 1861 -- even before that period. ... I was trying to be historically correct not politically correct.

Nantambu, however, argues that the method of selecting all-black students to recreate that portion of history is problematic:

Even if the black children had volunteered, I probably would have tried to use all of the children. That would have made all the children feel equal in the experience.

With both parents and teachers writing letters to the plantation to communicate their disdain, Campbell now plans to reform his approach:

I'm going to start asking for volunteers instead of calling people from the audience. I think that would make it a lot easier that way if someone is afraid of public speaking or getting up in front of peers it wouldn't embarrass them.

I actually agree with Campbell's insistence of driving home history with a hands-on experience. Most people learn best when they can take part in an exercise that allows one to "relive" the experience. Often, kids and parents alike bemoan the lack of creativity as well as the didactic manner in which information is taught to students.

Campbell is obviously trying to impress upon kids who visit his plantation how challenging it must have been for slaves to have subsisted during slavery. His attempt to encourage students to embody the realities of their ancestors is noteworthy. Where Campbell got it wrong, though, was context.

Making the few black students act out antebellum roles in front of their white peers had to be both embarrassing and humiliating for those involved. We may be 145 years removed from slavery, but as Nantambu said, that pain, that memory, lives. Perhaps it will take another 145 years for African Americans to say that they are definitively removed from slavery. Unfortunately for Campbell, we aren't there yet, so the idea of being singled out in front of white kids to act out compromising and submissive roles was narrow-minded in the least. Nantambu had it right when he said that Campbell should have had the sensitivity to select white students as well in order to broaden the experience.

What do you think?

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