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Texas schools make slavery a 'central' fact of the Civil War and no one can believe it

It really took this long?

Morgan Sung

on November 17, 2018

Texas schools make slavery a 'central' fact of the Civil War and no one can believe it

It's about time, Texas. Credit: Shutterstock / Mikael Damkier

Kids in Texas will finally learn that slavery was the primary reason for all the fighting during the Civil War, and people can't believe it took the state this long to decide that.

The state Board of Education confirmed that starting in 2019, public school curricula will include the fact that slavery played a "central role" in the war. During the vote Friday, the board also added Hellen Keller and Hillary Clinton back to the lesson plans. The two women were controversially removed in September in an effort to "streamline" the statewide standards.

The previous curriculum listed sectionalism and states' rights before slavery in statewide social studies standards. According to NPR, Republican board member David Bradley wanted students to learn about the other causes because "each state had differences and made individual decisions as to whether or not to join into the conflict."

"I mean, that's the definition of states' rights," he argued.

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Although Democrats on the board pushed for slavery to be the only taught cause of the Civil War, the majority-Republican board drew up a compromise. In the new set of standards, public schools will teach students about "the central role of the expansion of slavery in causing sectionalism, disagreements over states' rights, and the Civil War."

Lawrence Allen Jr., the only black member of the board, hopes the new standards will reinforce the connection between slavery and the Civil War since there's no "consensus" over the war's causes.

"And so if we can't drive it to a consensus in our state, we need to let our students look at it from all points of view," he said.

The wider population of Americans (and other social media users), however, can't believe that it took Texas this long. Although it's a step forward in acknowledging the country's dark history, many believe it isn't enough.

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The changes will take effect in August 2019 for middle and high school students, and 2020 for elementary schoolers, more than 156 years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the United States.