Kentucky
Reconstruction Vignette
| Application of the Colored People of Shellyville To Secretary Stanton Washington D.C.
Secretary we as a people ask for our wright– we acknowledge that we are Free But where is it That we are not be aloud to enter in to Publice Business Here in Shellyville. . . . we are not aloud to open know Grocery know Coffee House know kind and if we wont sperrits for sickness make know odds how Bilous the case we cannot get it if you call this Freedom what do you call Slavery I hop that we have some Friend in the capital the soldiers have Been in the army and are now mustered out and come Back home and thery cannot enter any Business whatever But have to return to their old master and work for whatever they chosse or see proper to gave them some get $10 dollars some $12 dollars some $13 whom can live that way Please send some word to our relievf. . . . Henry Mars |
On May 14, 1866, former Sergeant Major of the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry Henry Mars wrote to the Secretary of War on behalf of his community in Shelbyville, Kentucky. He noted restrictions on their freedoms — including no entry to grocery stores, coffee houses, other ostensibly public businesses — and requested assistance. Records indicate that the War Department forwarded this letter to the Freedmen’s Bureau, but include no documented reply.
Kentucky
Standards Overview
Coverage of Reconstruction: Partial
ZEP Standards Rubric Score: 1 out of 10
The coverage of Reconstruction in Kentucky’s standards is partial, and their content is dreadful. The Kentucky Department of Education adopted new state standards for social studies education in 2019. The Department of Education emphasized in the introduction to the standards that they were intended to “establish a statewide baseline of what students should know and be able to do at the conclusion of a grade or grade-span.” They are not intended to “address how learning experiences are to be designed or what resources should be used.”
Grade 8
Reconstruction is taught in grade 8. The standards apply to the entire span of the course, which goes from the colonial era to Reconstruction. Broadly, the focus of the grade 8 course is on citizenship. In grade 8 students examine the expansion and restriction of citizenship rights, focusing especially on the restrictions to voting rights. The standards mention “diverse groups, from American Indians to a variety of immigrant groups” who fought for recognition of citizenship rights and civil rights, but they do not explicitly mention Black people.
Reconstruction appears in the state standards several times, but always as an example or a part of a larger theme.
One example of how the standards could be applied in the classroom focuses on Reconstruction:
“For example, the expansion of and restriction on citizenship is seen in the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments (13th - 15th) followed by Jim Crow restrictions.”
Students learning about the “Roles and Responsibilities of a Citizen” do so by analyzing the
“Expansion of and restriction on citizenship and voting rights on diverse groups in the United States from the Colonial Era to Reconstruction from 1600–1877.”
A section focused on teaching students the concept of “Cause and Effect” directs students to:
“Analyze the cause and effect of Westward Expansion, the Civil War and Reconstruction on the diverse populations of the United States.”
This section is accompanied by a clarification statement: “As the Civil War ended and Reconstruction began, the promise of freedom was tempered with the reality of segregation and discrimination faced by former slaves.”
Otherwise, Reconstruction appears in the standards primarily as the chronological end point of the grade 8 history course.
Educator Experiences
Middle and high school teachers who responded to our survey emphasized that they recognized the importance of teaching Reconstruction but encountered political pushback or lacked necessary resources or course time to teach the topic appropriately.
One teacher encountered opposition from conservative parents and politicians who believed that teaching about Reconstruction was “part of a liberal agenda.” Another expressed concern that racist myths about the era were common among their white students and that a lack of pushback against these myths left students vulnerable to radicalization into white supremacist groups.
For other teachers, the barriers were access to resources and lack of knowledge about the period. Because teachers themselves have learned little about Reconstruction from their own education, even those who wanted to teach the topic struggled to gain enough information to do so in class.
Assessment
Kentucky’s Reconstruction educational standards are insufficient. Reconstruction is only covered in grade 8. While the focus of the course is on the history of citizenship, the standards fail to fit the advances, retreats, and long legacies of Reconstruction within that framework. They do explicitly mention the Reconstruction Amendments, Jim Crow, and segregation.
However, Kentucky’s standards do not mention the Black-led grassroots movement that helped create those amendments, or the violent white supremacist movement that defeated Reconstruction and derailed the protections contained in the Reconstruction Amendments. The standards’ “clarification” of “the reality of segregation and discrimination” conceals the agency and efforts of Black people, who sought to redefine freedom after emancipation. It also hides the agency of white people who created and perpetuated the systems of segregation and discrimination that African Americans faced.
The Kentucky Department of Education stipulated that these standards should define “what students should know” about their state and nation. Based on these standards, Reconstruction is not a topic that students in Kentucky will learn much about.
Teaching Reconstruction effectively requires centering Black people’s struggles to redefine freedom and equality and gain control of their own land and labor during and after the Civil War. Any discussion of Reconstruction must also grapple with the role of white supremacist terrorism in the defeat of Reconstruction and the negative and positive legacies of the era that persist to this day.
In 2022, Republican legislators introduced HB14, HB487, and SB138, bills designed to ban teaching about racism or sexism in schools. The Senate bill insists that “an American has the ability to succeed when he or she is given sufficient opportunity and is committed to seizing that opportunity.” These bills died in committee, but Republican lawmakers overrode Gov. Andy Bashear’s veto to pass a similar bill, SB1. This law requires schools to teach that “defining racial disparities solely on the legacy of [slavery] is destructive to the unification of our nation.” Several respondents to our survey expressed concern about the possible chilling effects on classroom education that such bills can have around the country, particularly on discussions of the history and legacies of Reconstruction.