In social studies standards for 45 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, discussion of Reconstruction is “partial” or “non-existent,” according to historians who reviewed how the period is discussed in K–12 social studies standards for public schools nationwide.

In a report produced by the education nonprofit Zinn Education Project, the study’s authors say they are concerned that American children will grow up to be uninformed about a critical period of history that helps explain why full racial equality remains unfulfilled today.

In Maryland, 8th-grade standards include Reconstruction at the end of the year. “I’ll be completely honest, I did not get to it at all [last year] because the virtual learning environment made it really difficult.”

With his 9th graders this fall, Baltimore teacher Seth Billingsley started the school year with Reconstruction. He and his students talked about what freedom meant to formerly enslaved people, that some of the promises of Reconstruction were fulfilled, and that there were then attempts to limit those new freedoms in the form of Black Codes, forced labor of prisoners, and the rise of Jim Crow laws.

The authors of the Zinn Education Project report argue, “The foundational premise of any set of teaching and learning standards for the Reconstruction era should be Black people’s agency, highlighting both what Black people did (to end slavery, engage in politics, build institutions, etc.) and what goals, beliefs, and motivations undergirded those actions.”

But with a few exceptions, state standards overwhelmingly emphasize a white-dominated, top-down history with little emphasis on ordinary Black people. In Florida, for example, the standards focus on the actions of government and on white people, including Southern whites and the Ku Klux Klan.