Teaching Slavery

I found Loewen's chapter on teaching slavery very interesting. I understand exactly what he is talking about when he mentions that people completely avoid teaching slavery. I always jump right into it with both feet. We teach in a school that is predominately African-American with roots firmly planted in slavery. If we do not teach it, we are denying these students of their heritage. I always teach a comparative history in which I compare Liberty County to the rest of the South. It has taken me a great deal of time to do the research, but it is worth it. When I tell the students that Liberty County slaves were the wealthiest slaves in Georgia and that they won a lawsuit against the Union army for taking that wealth, you should see the look on some of their faces. I show them a map of the plantations that were located in Liberty County. I love hearing the comments - "That's near my house!" "I know where that is!" When I mention local names of plantation owners such as LeConte, Bacon, Walthour, Jones, and Lambert, it is priceless when the lightbulb comes on in their heads. It must always be relevant to them or we will never get through to them. The hardest part is finding that tiny little thing that makes it that way.