ABSTRACT
What are American children taught today about Reconstruction? Helen Boardman has made a study of current textbooks and notes these three dominant theses:
1 All Negroes were ignorant.
“All were ignorant of public business.” (Woodburn and Moran, “Elementary American History and
Government,” p. 397)
“Although the Negroes were now free, they were also ignorant and unfit to govern themselves.”
