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There is a quote from Angela Davis' autobiography I wish to share. The whole of the work is fascinating, and I would encourage everyone to read it; it details Comrade Davis' life as well as the political persecution of her and radical African-Americans throughout the 60s and 70s. However, there is one section when she speaks of her primary education, at a poorly-funded segregated school in Alabama, that struck me as very relevant today.

"As we learned about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, we also became acquainted with Black historical figures. Granted, the Board of Education would not permit the teachers to reveal to us the exploits of Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey. But we were introduced to Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman." - Angela Davis: An Autobiography, page 91.

Does this not hold an extraordinary relevance to today? Even today, we are rarely taught about radical figures in historical periods. Perhaps Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey are mentioned, but no detail or the reasons behind their actions are ever explored aside from being "rebellious slaves." Especially here in the South, these rebellions are almost dismissed as unimportant, isolated incidents.

But even those we are taught about, do they not censor through omission? An enlightening example is Martin Luther King Jr, who we are of course taught led a section of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. But are children taught about his involvement with the Chicago Freedom Movement? His opposition to the Vietnam War? The Poor Peoples' Campaign? Radical figures like Malcolm X, Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael are brushed over with a mere mention or no mention at all.

Even the figures mentioned by Davis have been whitewashed in one way or another. Douglass criticized Lincoln as "the white man's president," Sojourner Truth fought the post-Civil War federal government to secure General Sherman's promised land grants without success, and Harriet Tubman was only compensated for her military service after she was robbed and beaten. We are told of these great people, and their contribution to the struggle for freedom, but we are never told of their own struggle against the post-war white men who reneged on their promises of "freedom."