You are here

Resources for Teaching the Mother Emanuel Shooting and the Confederate Flag Issue

 

Mother Emanuel Shooting and the Confederate Flag Issue 

Website research icon
Resources to assist teachers in teaching about the shooting that killed nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015, and the outcry against the flying of - and meaning behind - the Confederate Battle Flag.
 
Should states fly the Confederate Battle flag? It could be a great discussion starter for students, making sure they understand that they must back up their opinions with fact.
 
The Washington Post had a great article: "150 years later, schools are still a battlefield for interpreting Civil War" (July 5, 2015). Although it focuses on Texas, mostly due to their revised social studies standards in 2010 and the fact that they adopt textbooks at the state, not district, level, it does take a look at the difference in how the Civil War is taught in North & South.
 
"No, you need a history lesson: the Confederate flag is a symbol of hate" is an op-ed piece from the Huffington Post. Written from the point of view of an African-American who grew up in the South, it's a powerful outline of the reasons why so many see the battle flag as a symbol of hatred, racism, and oppression.
 
The Boston Globe also had a really interesting article, "Richmond split over Confederate history: In the capital of the Confederacy, calls are rising to properly memorialize the slave trade". This focuses on the lack of acknowledgment in Richmond, VA, as the center of the southern slave trade for many years, while at the same time having an abundance of statues and memorials to Confederate heroes.
 
The New York Times interviews staff at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA, about the issue. It's an interesting look at how far reaching the debate over the Confederate battle flag has become, and how it has affected different organizations.
 
An op-ed in the Washington Times outlines a different story: one of Northern domination, brainwashing, and purposeful discrimination against the South, and attempting to whitewash a painful, racist history. For example: "where are the calls to remove every sign of the now-deceased Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan and former Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Robert Byrd, who has his own statue in Congress?...Shall we erase him from our history?"