Georgia serves students poorly by failing to educate them fully about slavery

In the 12th-grade social studies standards, the word “slavery” appears only nine times throughout the course. None of those mentions treat slavery as a standalone issue. Instead, slavery is always tied to larger topics like politics or economics. Framing slavery as a mere cause of other problems — rather than a moral and historical catastrophe in itself — minimizes the reality of those who suffered through it. It becomes a backdrop, not the central injustice it was.

Another example of this avoidance is found in Cartersville Middle School’s curriculum map. Around 15 instructional days are designated for the colonial period — a period when slavery was at its height — while three weeks are spent on industrialization. This imbalance suggests a clear message: The suffering of enslaved people is less worthy of attention than economic expansion. That message, whether intentional or not, is reinforced by the state.

State law on divisive concepts creates ‘impossible situation’ for teachers

Credit: Columbia University football

Credit: Columbia University football

This isn’t just a matter of wording, it shapes how students see the world. By minimizing slavery, schools distort the roots of systemic racism and foster a shallow understanding of the forces that continue to drive inequality.

Racism becomes easier to overlook because students are never taught to see how deeply embedded it is in American institutions.

The state has also taken steps to further silence honest conversations about slavery and race. The 2022 “Protect Students First Act” prohibits classroom instruction that promotes so-called “divisive concepts.” That includes anything implying that one race is inherently superior — ironically, the very foundation of slavery and racism.

Teachers are left in an impossible situation. Many are unsure how to navigate the vague language of the law and fear professional consequences for speaking honestly in class.

This climate of fear directly conflicts with academic frameworks like Critical Race Theory (CRT). Legal scholar Derrick Bell, who helped pioneer CRT, argues in "Faces at the Bottom of the Well" that racism is not just personal prejudice, but a permanent and structural feature of American society.

When schools avoid teaching how slavery created those structures, they rob students of the ability to understand the inequality around them.

History lessons on enslaved Black Americans require moral clarity

Scholar Ibram X. Kendi echoes this in his book "Stamped from the Beginning," arguing that Americans are often taught to blame individuals rather than systems. If students aren’t taught how institutions protected and perpetuated slavery, they’ll wrongly assume modern inequities are just the result of individual bad actors. That ignorance isn’t neutral – it actively prevents progress.

Some argue slavery’s violence is too harsh for students to confront. But compare that to how the Holocaust is taught in Georgia. Students are shown survivor testimonies, historical documents, and are encouraged to reflect deeply. This is the right approach. But slavery — America’s own genocide by another name — is rarely taught with the same moral clarity. A McGraw-Hill textbook once referred to enslaved Africans as “workers”— language that would never be tolerated when teaching the Holocaust. The inconsistency is glaring.

Countries like Germany criminalize Holocaust denial and take historical responsibility seriously. But in Georgia, accountability is replaced with erasure. Whitewashing slavery is not just an oversight – it’s a political strategy. It prioritizes comfort over truth, and image over accuracy. But historical honesty is not partisan, it’s a moral obligation. Georgia students, especially those graduating this season, deserve an education that faces our past without flinching.

Slavery built Georgia, its economy, its institutions, its social order. Racism didn’t end with slavery, and students must be taught this. To gloss over that fact is to leave them unprepared to understand the present or shape the future. Georgia calls its standards “excellence.” But until it fully teaches the truth about slavery, the state’s education system will be far from it.

Mason Robinson is a Black first-year student-athlete at Columbia University and a graduate of Camden County High School in Kingsland, Georgia.