NC lawmakers reject adding Black history to new Holocaust legislation
Advocates of teaching North Carolina students about the historical suffering of Black people and Native Americans were told Tuesday to file their own legislation instead of including it in a new bill about the Holocaust.
The state House Education Committee backed legislation Tuesday requiring the State Board of Education to include instruction of the Holocaust and genocide in the English and social studies standards used in middle schools and high schools.
The committee narrowly rejected in a voice vote an amendment that would have required the state board to also integrate teaching about Black history into the standards.
Supporters of the Holocaust legislation say it’s needed because some people still deny that the Nazis killed millions of Jews, Roma and other people. The “Gizella Abramson Holocaust Education Act” is named after a Polish-born Holocaust survivor who relocated to Raleigh. Before she died in 2011, Abramson spoke at schools about the Holocaust.
Committee members were told Tuesday that North Carolina public school students could graduate without being taught about the Holocaust in school.
Need for Black history raised
Concerns were raised by some Democratic committee members that the bill doesn’t recognize the holocausts experienced by other groups.
Rep. Charles Graham, a Robeson County Democrat, said students should also learn about the holocaust of Native Americans.
The amendment presented by Rep. Kandie Smith, a Pitt County Democrat, would have added Black history and the development of a Black history elective to the Holocaust legislation. It would have gone alongside the development of a Holocaust studies elective that’s already part of the bill.
Smith said the N.C. Caucus of Black School Boards Members supported the amendment.
But Rep. Jeffrey Elmore, a Wilkes County Republican and one of the bill’s primary sponsors, said that parts of Black history, such as slavery, are already included in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. He pointed to how the state board recently approved new social studies standards that include more of the perspectives of different groups.
In contrast, Elmore said the standard course of study, which outlines what students should be taught, doesn’t mention the Holocaust. He said there’s still time left this session to file legislation about teaching about Black history or Native American history.
This story was originally published March 23, 2021 at 5:06 PM with the headline "NC lawmakers reject adding Black history to new Holocaust legislation."
