Parents, teachers and the NAACP are up in arms after a group of Black Children were told to play the role of slave in front of their White classmates.
During a field trip to Latta Plantation earlier this month, a historian told Black students from a Rea View Elementary school were made to pick cotton. Ian Campbell, a Black historian who has in the business for more than 15 years, defended his action by saying he wanted to give the kids a hands-on lesson about the Civil War.
“I am very enthusiastic about getting kids to think about how people did things in 1860, 1861 -- even before that period," he told WSOC-TV. "I was trying to be historically correct not politically correct."
One parent said Ian picked three Black children out of a mostly White class and had them put cotton collection bags around their necks during the demonstration. While Ian said he was merely trying to be as realistic in his lesson as possible, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg chapter of the NAACP feels he took it way too far.
"There is a lingering pain, a lingering bitterness, a lingering insecurity and a lingering sense of inhumanity since slavery,” said Chapter President Kojp Nantambu. “Because that's still there, you want to be more sensitive than politically correct or historically correct."
For now it seems that Ian was the only one who learned a lesson from this controversial tour.
"I'm going to start asking for volunteers instead of calling people from the audience,” he said. “I think that would make it a lot easier that way if someone is afraid of public speaking or getting up in front of peers it wouldn't embarrass them."
However, the Kojo still wants him to strive for equality, suggesting, "Even if the black children had volunteered, I probably would have tried to use all of the children. That would have made all the children feel equal in the experience."
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