Bob Somerby comments on a news commentary show where one participant noted he hadn't been taught the Tulsa massacre and just recently learned about the Birmingham church bombing which killed four young black girls in Sunday school.
I think it seems to Bob (who's maybe 7 years younger than I) and to me that obviously modern kids should be taught both.
But that's a knee jerk opinion--both Bob and I lived through the reporting of the bombing so it's something of a landmark in the progression of the civil rights movement. We didn't live through Tulsa; not that it matters because the massacre did not, I believe, make any national impression--media is very different now. Given the limited time a teacher has, I'm not sure which events need to be covered--letter from a Birmingham jail, Woolworth counter sit-in, Albany Georgia, Pettus bridge, Shwerner, Chaney, and Goodman? The laws which were passed, the Rochester riot, the Kerner commission, RFK on MLK's assassination?
I suppose for most teachers the details have dropped out so their decision making is easier than it would be for me or Bob.
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