Craig: Why an 1896 history book could be SB 1's perfect curriculum
Republican legislators hunting for a textbook that captures the spirit of Senate Bill 1 might consider Elizabeth Shelby Kinkead’s “A History of Kentucky,” which was published in 1896 and 1909 and revised in 1916.
On the last page, the author wrote that she hoped pupils who read her book would become “spiritual warriors to aid in purifying the political life of the State and nation, or to conquer the evil in the land by the might of their own high faith in goodness.”
A big part of SB 1, which Kentucky’s GOP supermajority General Assembly passed earlier this year, requires teachers to downplay the effect of pervasive and deep-seated racial bias on society, today and throughout history. That section of SB 1 reflects the national right-wing wig-out over Critical Race Theory, the scholarly study of systemic racism in law and society. It’s taught in law school and some graduate schools, not elementary and secondary schools“Unfortunately, critical race theory is being used as a straw man by opportunistic politicians and others who want to promote, rather than resolve, conflict to further their own dubious agendas,” Jill Kerper Mora wrote in the “Times of San Diego.”
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Wrote “Vanity Fair’s” Bess Levin: “As CNN notes, SB 1 states that public schools must provide instruction that makes it clear that ‘an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed by other members of the same race or sex’ and that ‘the institution of slavery and post–Civil War laws enforcing racial segregation and discrimination were contrary to the fundamental American promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, but that defining racial disparities solely on the legacy of this institution is destructive to the unification of our nation.’ In other words, teachers would have had to explain to their students that while slavery and Jim Crow–era segregation were bad, they really amounted to more of a ‘few bad apples’ situation that has no impact on America today.”
Said Rebecca Powell, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Center for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy at Georgetown College: “I think the real danger here is that teachers are discouraged from talking about racism because the bill says it may be 'destructive to the unification of our nation.' How does a teacher explain racism without discussing slavery? How else would a teacher define racial disparities?”
Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat vetoed the measure to no avail, arguing, “Senate Bill 1 tries to police classroom discussions on topics such as race. These are discussions our children are having with or without adults in our schools. Prescribing a rigid approach to what must be ‘taught’ in those discussions will lessen if not erase them.”
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Murray State University historian Brian Clardy said SB 1 (and similar anti-CRT bills Republican lawmakers and governors are pushing and passing in other states) are calculated to whitewash more than Black history. Besides Blacks, short-shrifted constituencies include women, immigrants, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Jews, Muslims and LGBTQ people – in other words, anybody who’s not a white, straight, conservative, Anglo-Saxon, Christian male, according to Clardy.
White, straight (presumably), conservative Anglo-Saxon Christian (culturally, at least) menfolk are the main heroes of Kinkead’s history book. It ends in 1915, so a second volume might be needed. Kentucky Republicans should be able to find an author to their liking at, say, Liberty or Bob Jones universities.
Anyway, in the preface, Kinkead pledged that she stuck “to facts as closely as they could be ascertained” and that she tried to make the book “historically sincere.”
Here are some examples from Part I, entitled “Pioneer Days”:
“The pioneers, or first white men who came to Kentucky, had to contend not only with the wild beasts of the forest but also with the equally savage Indian warriors."
“The pioneers were men sent forth by the wisdom of God to found a new Commonwealth. They went in peace, but with their rifles cocked to defend their lives from the Indians."
“[Daniel Boone] was an instrument in the hands of God to open the way for the foundation of a great State.”In Part IV, entitled “The Civil War,” Kinkead wrote about enslaved Kentuckians:
“On the great landed estates of the Commonwealth the lot of the slave was comparatively happy... While they greatly desired freedom, they were as a class a peaceable people that dreaded change. They knew the life they were living. It had sore trials; but they realized that they would always be provided for... Moreover, the careless, irresponsible existence they led made them unthinking. They lived for the moment, and if they could steal off at night and meet together at some neighboring ‘quarters’ for a dance, they gave themselves up to the frolic with reckless disregard of the punishment which might follow on the morrow.”
Berry Craig is a professor emeritus of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah and the author of several books on Kentucky history, including Kentuckians and Pearl Harbor: Stories from the Day of Infamy (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2020.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: SB 1's perfect textbook has already been written - a 1896 history book
