Letter: Teach American history, both the bad and the good

American history should be taught objectively, in Florida and everywhere. It is partly an ugly story about what white people did to black people, in terms of slavery, segregation, lynching, and denial of voting rights, but it is also a positive story about what white people and black people did together to end slavery, to end segregation, to end lynching, and to extend voting rights. Neither part of the story, negative or positive, should be left out.

I suggest that every school system include, in its American history curriculum, thirteen milestones on the road to racial equality.

1. Northern states of the United States began abolishing slavery within five years of American independence.

2. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbid slavery in the territory north of the Ohio River.

3. Congress forbade the importation of slaves into the United States in 1808.

4. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 forbid slavery north of a line in the West.

5. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in the Confederate States.

6. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery.

7. The Fourteenth Amendment recognized Blacks as equal citizens.

8. The Fifteenth Amendment extended voting rights to Blacks.

9. President Truman’s Executive Order 9981 in 1948 mandated the end of segregation in the United States armed forces.

10. The Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision of 1954 ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

11. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation in public accommodations.

12. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enforced the Fifteenth Amendment, allowing Southern Blacks to vote.

13. The Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision legalized interracial marriage in every state.

By remembering these steps toward racial equality, we can all have a greater appreciation of the evolution of greater freedom in the United States.

Daniel Haulman, Montgomery

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Letter: Teach American history, both the bad and the good