February 26, 2025 • 44 mins
American school children receive two distinct versions of United States history depending on what state they live in: one version of the American past aimed to meet the curricular demands of the largest market, California, and an often strikingly different version to meet the increasingly rightwing expectations of the Texas legislature. Most of the other states in the union pick between the two. This episode will examine how this situation developed, the increasing national influence of one Texas evangelical author David Barton, how Americans perceive the relationship of church and state, the continuing war on the theory of evolution, and the strange story of how efforts to post the Ten Commandments in American classrooms can be traced to Hollywood marketing of the 1950s Cecile B. D. Mille epic, The Ten Commandments.
Sources:
Dana Goldstein, “Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories,” New York Times, January 12, 2020.
Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic Books, 2015.)
James W. Loewen, Lies My History Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.)
Alan Nadel, Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995.)
Michael Phillips, White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2011 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Michael Phillips. I wrote a history of racism in
Dallas called White Metropolis, and have co authored an upcoming
book on the history of eugenics in Texas called The
Purifying Knife.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
And I'm Stephen Monticelli, an investigative reporter and columnist who
covers extremism and far right movements for a variety of publications,
including The Texas Observer and The Barbed Wire.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
School board meetings used to be boring. Board members typically
spend hours discussing financial reports, land purchases, plumbing contracts, and
other tedious topics. But beginning in twenty twenty, Christopher Ruffo,
a former documentary filmmaker and fellow at the right wing
Heritage Foundation, the group responsible for Project twenty twenty five,
(00:50):
launched a campaign to convince Americans that public schools have
become communists and doctrination centers. RUFO falsely claimed that public
school teachres were brainwashing school children with something called critical
race theory or CRT for short. Adherents of critical race
theory argue that racism has become so intrinsically entwined in
(01:13):
American politics, law, and culture that anti discrimination laws typically
fail While CRT is studied in some graduate schools and
law programs, it hasn't been taught at the grade school level,
where the outrage has been directed.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That's certainly not the case in Texas, which influences curriculums
across the nation due to its large population and purchasing
power of textbooks. But precision wasn't the point of Rufo's campaign. Rather,
it was to refashion CRT into a sort of political cudgel,
something that Rufo admitted to in a series of tweets
(01:48):
in twenty twenty one. The goal is to have the
public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think critical.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Race theory, Rufo wrote.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
We have decotify the term and will recodify it to
annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular
with Americans.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
On Fox News, Newsmax and other right wing media outlets,
Rufo convinced parents that instead of teaching kids reading, writing,
and arithmetic, public school teachers were using CRT to brainwash
white children into hating themselves and goading black children into
hating white people. Radical teachers and professors, Rufo warned, had
(02:30):
launched a sinister campaign to destroy the American way of life.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
In a foundational paper called Whiteness's Property, the critical race
theorist Cheryl Harris has proposed suspending private property rights, seizing
land and wealth from the rich and redistributing it along
racial lines.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Rufa's timing could not have been more perfect. The artificial
CRT panic broke out during the COVID pandemic. Parents already
felt frustration and fury about the hard ships of campus closings,
remote learning, and mass mandates, now convinced that their children
were being taught to scapegoat white people for all the
(03:08):
country's problems. Parents across the country exploded in rage at
local school boards. Reuters reported on one meaning that turned
violent in Loudon County, Virginia.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
What had been planned as a typical school board meeting
in Virginia's wealthy Louden County this week devolved into pandemonium,
with hundreds of parents flooding an auditorium to accuse the
school system of teaching their kids that racism in America
is structural and systemic, something the school board denies as
(03:45):
part of the curriculum. Things got so heated that the
board members eventually walked out leaving the police to deal
with the unruly crowd. Two people left in handcuffs. Louden
County School Board has been roiled for months by accusations
that it has embraced critical race theory, a school of
(04:08):
thought that maintains that racism is ingrained in US law
and institutions, and that legacies of slavery and segregation have
created an uneven playing field for black Americans. The idea
that CRT, as it's known, is infiltrating public schools has
become a rallying cry for conservatives, who, like many in Louden,
(04:29):
say it is being used to indoctrinate children that America
is a racist country.
Speaker 7 (04:34):
Critical race theory is anti white, and it's not American.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Those within a year for historical rhymes may find this
outcry familiar. Resistance to racial integration and the Civil rights
era movements drew similar accusations of being hostile to whites
and being a product of anti American communism, and those
with experienced teaching students might chuckle at the accusations of
ideologically motivated brainwas an indoctrination. A common joke posted by
(05:03):
teachers online is that quote, if we could indoctrinate students.
Students would always read the syllabus, but that didn't stop
panic over CRT expanding to include anti LGBTQ sentiment as well,
with queer students and teachers who supported them being placed
squarely in the crosshairs of a well funded national hate
machine dedicated to ginning up fear among local parents. Here's
(05:28):
a clip from one speech I personally witnessed at the
school board meeting of my hometown school district, grape Vine Kullyville,
from August twenty twenty two, and very simple truths.
Speaker 8 (05:38):
There's only two genders, and boys should go to boys rooms,
girls should go to girls' restrooms. And guess what teachers
should be forced to use Your freaking made up fantasy.
Speaker 9 (05:49):
Pronouns find like hall hold the line against the LGBT
mafia and their dang pedo fans hate winning. You know what,
keep the wing they you keep the monkey cocks.
Speaker 10 (06:03):
How's that work?
Speaker 11 (06:04):
It?
Speaker 10 (06:05):
The keep wrings so much, We'll keep come.
Speaker 8 (06:07):
You know what, We're.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Gonna keeck come so hard.
Speaker 9 (06:10):
The only thing these bullcards have to figure out is
whiler tell their face back one thighs. Wow, it's all.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
As absurd as all this may seem there was something
to this national phenomenon that was rooted in reality. As
of twenty twenty, the United States had become more culturally diverse,
racially integrated, and accepting of LGBTQ people than ever before,
and our education systems have increasingly reflected that reality. There's
also a deep irony to this reaction. Prior to the
(06:42):
advances of the Civil Rights era and beyond, schools in
the United States have often been the centers of ideologically
motivated education, but not the fantasy Bolshevik propaganda that outrages
the right. In fact, it's usually been the opposite. For
most of its history, American public schools have effectively advanced
white supremacy, female subordination, and submission to capitalism. In this episode,
(07:07):
we're going to look at what has actually been taught
in American schools over the years, with a particular focus
in Texas, and how what you learn about American history
depends on where you live and how Christian supremacists are
successfully inserting their theology into school curriculums in much of
the country, with Texas playing a leading role.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Textbooks before the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties Civil Rights
era were explicitly and astonishingly white supremacists. Schoolbooks in the South,
for instance, portrayed Confederates as gallant gentlemen fighting for a
noble loss cause. This influenced popular culture, as we see
in films like Gone with the Wind. Meanwhile, school kids
(07:48):
were taught that abolitionists who wanted to end slavery before
the Civil War were terrorists who needlessly plunged the country
into civil war, and this too steeped into the public
imagination of movies like NFA Trail starring Van Heflin.
Speaker 12 (08:04):
The time is coming when the rest of us are
going to wipe you, and you're kind off the face
of the earth.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
According to the myths promoted first in schools then echoed
in mass entertainment, slavery would have gone away eventually if
only white slave owning Southerners had been left alone to
figure it out themselves. Screenplaywriters have often echoed what they
heard in the classroom is we see In this scene
from the nineteen forty film Santa Fe Trail. Here Raymond
(08:33):
Massey plays John Brown, a white abolitionist who tried to
start a slave rebellion Harper's Ferry Virginia in eighteen fifty nine.
Massey portrays him as a thoroughly crazed maniac, while Aero
Flynn depicts future Confederate General J. E. B. Stewart as
sweetly rational.
Speaker 12 (08:52):
Half of the people in America believe in your theory,
A lot of them, even Condonia methods that'll guarantee you
a public trial.
Speaker 13 (09:00):
I'm not on trial, but the nation itself?
Speaker 12 (09:04):
Are you too stupid and blinded by.
Speaker 14 (09:05):
A uniform to see what I see?
Speaker 12 (09:08):
A dark and evil curse laying all over this land?
Speaker 15 (09:12):
A kind will sin against God can only be wiped
out in blood?
Speaker 12 (09:16):
But why in blood? The people of Virginia are considered
a resolution to abolic slavery for a long time. They
sense that the tomorrow wrong, and the rest of the
South will follow Virginia's example. All I ask is time.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
From the eighteen eighties until the nineteen sixties, school books
depicted the country's only brief experiment with multiracial democracy at
the time, the Reconstruction period from eighteen sixty five to
eighteen seventy seven, as a time of rampant corruption. These
books often described emancipated African Americans as ignorant lazy and
(09:51):
expecting government handouts, while their white allies were portrayed as crooks.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
American school children furthermore learned from their teacher that so
called radical democracy was not a good idea, and sometimes
dictatorship was the better option. The nineteen twenty four textbook
Are World Today and Yesterday, a History of Modern Civilization,
published two years after Mussolini's fascist government took over Italy,
(10:18):
had nothing but praise for that nation's new dictator. The
authors told the impressionable high school students the following about
the world's first fascist leader.
Speaker 16 (10:27):
Mussolini has chosen a ministry made up of capable men
and has straightened up the badly demoralized finances of the country.
He and his followers are accused of suppressing liberty and
downing the communists by violence. Nevertheless, he has done much
to do away with strikes and to re establish conditions
(10:48):
as they were before the economic demoralization of World War
One set in again.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
School books reinforced an American culture in the nineteen twenties
that responded to the horror of World War One, labor unrest,
and the impact of immigration by becoming not only more
intolerant but also more anti democratic.
Speaker 15 (11:09):
All the while, Mussolini's propaganda machine churned out images of
a thriving country and a via leader Iluch stripped down
for the camera bok side by side with the peasants
and wrestled wild animals. Never mind that this one had
no teeth. Nonetheless, it was working. Mussolini attracted fans worldwide,
(11:30):
including Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud, and Mohandas Gandhi. Here he
speaks to his many supporters among Italian Americans, I.
Speaker 17 (11:39):
Tell it the Italians of America, who I want to
make America greed.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Another textbook, published in nineteen thirty five, The Record of America,
told stins that the so called Founding fathers like Alexander
Hamilton were not big believers in democracy, an attitude the
authors seemed to endorse. As the Record of America put it.
Speaker 16 (12:02):
The Founders had little faith in the ability of people
as a whole to maintain self control and wisdom in government.
They had no confidence in the man without property. A
man who had failed to accumulate property would be regarded
as shiftless, lazy, or incompetent, and not deserving a voice
(12:23):
in the government of others. The Constitution was written to
retain power in the hands of those who release radical
and to set obstacles in the way of radical mob action.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
After the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties civil rights movements,
history textbooks for the first time covered the horrors of slavery,
the heroism of African American abolitionists like Surgeon or truth
in Frederick Douglas, and the evils of the Ku Klux
Klan with clarity. But the backlash was swift, particularly after
the election of the first African American president, Barack Obama
(13:00):
and the rise of the hyper conservative Tea Party.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
In response, in twenty ten.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Tea Party supporters took control of the Texas State school Board,
which has control over Texas school book curriculums. They felt
that this reckoning with America's racist past undermined patriotism and
demanded a rewrite of school lesson plans.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
In twenty fifteen, Ronnie Dean Baron got a text from
her son Kobe, who was glancing at a ninth grade geography
textbook published by McGraw hill signed him by his high
school in Perilyn, Texas, near Houston. He sent her a
video highlighting a map in its shocking caption. Soon Burn
(13:50):
posted her son's video online. That video, as KPRC reported,
spread outrage across the nation.
Speaker 17 (13:57):
A video post on Ronnie Dean Buren's face book page.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
So I'm going to show you the book and then
there's just an interesting.
Speaker 17 (14:04):
Section, went viral. Her video has been viewed more than
one point eight million times and has forty eight thousand shares.
To get to the topic of conversation, you literally have
to turn through the pages of her son's geography textbook.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
The immigration in the United States can be divided in
four district periods.
Speaker 17 (14:21):
Kobe, who's in the ninth grade at Perlin High School,
was studying immigration when he read this in his textbook,
a comment that referenced African slaves as workers.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
As if we worked our way up in America, as
if we came here by choice for a better life.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
The offensive caption read, in full quote, the Atlantic slave
trade between the fifteen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds brought
millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States
to work.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
On agricultural plantations.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
The publisher of the book, simply titled World Geography later
apologized for the euphemism, noting that it did not adequately
convey that Africans were both forced into migration and to
labor against their will as slaves. The company said it
would revise the digital version of the text and future
print versions, but it was unclear at the time when
(15:12):
the new edition would be in students' hands.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
The caption wasnt an accident. McGraw hill had given the
Stay of Texas what it wanted, rather than anything like
critical race theory. The State Board of Education twenty ten
adopted changes in Texas curriculum standards for public schools, known
as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills that imposed a whitewash
of American slavery, raised doubts about human caused climate change,
(15:39):
and imposed other right wing content to be sold in
Texas school textbooks had to meet the board's standards.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Texas State Board of Education members are elected from districts
that tilt the body towards rural parts of the state
and serve four year terms, while the governor appoints the
chair of the board. Since the beginning of the twenty
first century, the board has been dominated by Christian right activists.
As a twenty thirteen PBS report.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
Deaths Don McElroy has three jobs and he loves them all.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Good morning got to mclary's office.
Speaker 7 (16:12):
Job number one dentist, job number two Sunday school teacher,
and job number three member of the Texas State Board
of Education, a seat he's held for the last twelve years.
But it's that third job which has put this dentist
and Sunday school teacher from Brian, Texas into a national
(16:33):
debate over what kids are taught in school. Critics have
accused McLeroy of injecting his religious conservative beliefs into the curriculum.
About every ten years, the board revises the textbook standards
for different subjects. Any books bought by the state must
conform to these guidelines. The last big battle was over
(16:53):
the science standards. This year he's tackling social studies.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
The demands Texas makes of textbook publishers matter, as PBS
reported a decade ago.
Speaker 7 (17:05):
According to publishing insiders, textbooks are often tailored to fit
Texas's standards. Because Texas is the largest buyer of textbooks.
That means the choices made here could determine books that
other states will buy, and that's led to a school
fight that has the entire country looking on.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
This is how Kobe Burn ended up with the World
Geography textbook that used the word workers to describe chattel slaves.
Kathy Miller of the anti censorship group Texas Freedom Network said, quote,
it's no accident that this happened in Texas. We have
a textbook adoption process that's so politicized and so flawed
(17:44):
that's become almost a punchline for comedians. Those serious about
education aren't laughing. However, in twenty eighteen, the state board
removed Hillary Clinton, the first woman to be presidential nominee
of a major political party, from the list of major
historic figures Texas students must learn about, a decision later
reversed after embarrassing news coverage. In twenty ten, that board
(18:08):
mandated that textbooks depict the Civil War as primarily a
struggle over states' rights and not slavery, a choice that
was later modified in twenty eighteen to return slavery as
the primary cause, but still maintained that quote states rights
and sexualism were key contributing factors. Approved books still tell
(18:29):
students that segregated black schools and the Jim Crow Eric
quote had similar buildings, buses, and teachers as white schools,
maintaining a hint of these separate but equal logics that
upheld segregation. One textbook included cartoon in which a space
alien lands on Earth and asks if he's eligible for
affirmative action programs. Texas standards also misled students into thinking
(18:53):
there was controversy about whether human activity has led to
climate change and to quote consider all sides of scientist
evidence regarding evolution, even though the scientific consensus in favor
of fossil fuels trinking climate change and also the scientific
consensus regarding evolution is nearly unanimous. Students can get dramatically
(19:14):
different versions of American history based on which state they
attend schools. A New York Times comparison textbooks used at
California Texas show that both versions of the same history
textbook include an annotated Bill of rights in reference to
the Second Amendment. However, the California textbook notes that several
(19:34):
federal court rulings have allowed regulation of gun sales and ownership.
The Texas version of the same book replaces US commentary
with a quote blank white space. As The New York Times.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Reported, Texas and California textbooks both introduced students to African
American authors during the Harlem Renaissance, but only Texas students
are told that quote. Some dismissed the quality of the
literature produced by the Harlem Renaissance.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
As The New York Times reported. The California version of
the history textbook addressed the issue of white flight, the
phenomena whereby parents moved from cities when schools became integrated
and moved to overwhelmingly Anglo suburbs. The California textbooks said this.
Speaker 16 (20:20):
Some people wished to escape the crime and the congestion
of the city. Movement of some white people from cities
to suburbs was driven by a desire to get away
from more culturally diverse neighborhoods. Others believed the suburbs offered
better and more affordable living.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
The Texas version of the same textbook deleted the sentence
referring to racism as a motive for white flight, but
left the reference to a fear of crime, reframing what
students learned about why suburbs grew so rapidly after World
War Two. The Texas State Board also specifically asked one
textbook publisher demphasized how many clergies signed the Declaration of
(21:00):
Independence and to underscore the supposed importance of religion to
the founders. These particular demands were the result of intense
lobbying by Texas Christian nationalist David Barton.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Barton, a seventy year old lifelong resident of Aledo, Texas,
which is a small town just southwest of Fort Worth,
has become a major influence on the Republican Party and
its attitudes towards education, not just in the Lone Star State,
but across the nation. While reporting on the Conservative Political
Action Conference for Rolling Stone, I recall being given a
(21:36):
copy of one of Barton's books. He calls himself a historian,
although his only credential is a bachelor's degree in religious
education from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A one
time science and math teacher at a Christian academy in
his hometown, Barton plunged into politics in nineteen eighty eight
as a Republican activist with a penchant for homophobia. He
(22:00):
declared that homosexuality is as evil as any deed Adolf
Hitler committed and said that the lack of cure for
AIDS was God's punishment for a wicked community. Quote, your
sexual choice is not a God given right, he said
on one occasion.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
In nineteen eighty eight, Barton founded Wall Builders, a nonprofit.
The organization says dedicated to quote educating the nation concerning
the godly founding of the nation. Barton believes that Americans
have been deceived about the true meaning of the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declares, quote, Congress
shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion.
(22:39):
The Founders, Barton claims, only meant that Congress should pick
a particular Protestant denomination as the national faith. Barton also
argues that Thomas Jefferson meant that the wall of separation
between church and state should operate only in one direction,
that the government should not interfere with a religion, but
that Christians should dominate the government. As Barton said in
(23:02):
an interview.
Speaker 11 (23:03):
So we've got to get away from being scared to
say we're a Christian nation. What we've got to do
is to find it the right way, define it the
historical way. We can't let the left steal three hundred
years of heritage. We can't let them wipe out three
hundred core cases, wipe out what dozens of presents and
governors have said, simply because they don't like the term,
we are.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
A Christian nation.
Speaker 11 (23:24):
We have been a Christian nation, and that doesn't mean
anything they think it does. We're not theocratic, we're not coercive.
We believe in free choice. We don't believe in any
of the others. And that's what we've got to get
back to doing. We don't need to be ashamed at
all that we're Christians and that we believe we have
a Christian nation.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
The story is much more complicated than Barton says, and
he gets the most important details wrong. Most of the
generation that led the Revolution and wrote the Constitution agreed
with Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence,
that when church and state mix, both are harmed. Jefferson
successfully established separation of church and state in his home
(24:00):
state of Virginia in seventeen eighty six when it adopted
the Statute of Religious Freedom he authored. The first Amendment,
adopted in seventeen eighty nine, also banned Congress from quote
establishing a religion, and most states embraced, to varying degrees,
the doctrine of church state separation.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
There were some states that objected to this notion. The
state governments of Connecticut and Massachusetts, for instance, initially interpreted
the First Amendment as meaning only Congress could not establish religion,
but states could. Citizens of those two states paid taxes
that supported the Congregationalist Church, respectively, until eighteen eighteen. In
(24:38):
eighteen thirty three, for decades, some states had so called
quote Jew laws that prohibited non Christians from holding office
or had similar bands on Catholics. Such laws were the exception, however,
and fell by the wayside by the end of the
nineteenth century. The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in eighteen sixty eight,
placed the same limits on state power that were placed
(25:01):
on the federal government regarding the establishment of religion, a
limitation upheld in the nineteen forty seven Supreme Court case.
Ever since versus Board of Education.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Artin has campaigned to overwrite that history with his own
alternative narrative. Towards that end, he's collected approximately one hundred
thousand primary documents written before eighteen twelve. Based on that
selection of material, he argues that American leaders like Washington, Jefferson, Adams,
and their peers wanted only Christians to lead the nation.
(25:32):
And that American law should be based on the Bible.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Barton believes that not just the Bible, but also the
original United States Constitution, which includes provisions protecting slavery such
as the Three Fifths Compromise, were directly inspired by God.
He asserts, again with no evidence and without defining terms,
that fifty two of the fifty five signers of the
(25:56):
Declaration of Independence were, in his words, quote orthodized or
evangelical Christians. In reality, the early leaders of America didn't
speak with one mind regarding religion. Many were deists who
saw God not as a deity invested in the daily
lives of humans, but as a dispassionate clockmaker who put
(26:18):
the gears the universe together, wound it up, and let
it run on its own. Their God didn't intervene in
history or perform miracle healings at spiritual revivals. When Ben
Franklin proposed opening the first session the seventeen eighty seven
Constitutional Convention with a prayer, the proposal was voted down,
with only four approving Franklin's motion, and a gathering that
(26:41):
as many as fifty five attended on any given day.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
In their letters, many of the founding fathers scoffed at
the accuracy of the Bible and the reliability of its
myriad translations. As John Adams said of the Bible.
Speaker 14 (26:55):
In an age when fraud, forgery, and perjury were considered
as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators, and theologians,
what may not be suspected.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Benjamin Franklin told his friend Ezra Styles that Jesus was
a wise philosopher, but that he had personal doubts that
Christ was the son of God. Franklin questioned whether the
depiction of Christ's life or even his teachings as describing
the Gospels, could be trusted.
Speaker 14 (27:26):
As to Jesus of Nazareth, I think the system of
morals and his religion as he left them to us
the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see.
But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and
I have doubt with most of the present dissenters in
(27:47):
England as to his divinity, though it is a question
I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
And Thomas Jefferson, who Barton insists, believe that the American
government should be based on Christian values, was even more
blunt about a central Christian belief regarding Jesus and his
virgin birth.
Speaker 14 (28:09):
Jefferson wrote, Jesus was a man of illegitimate birth, of
a benevolent heart and an enthusiastic mind, who set out
without pretensions of divinity, ended in believing them, and was
punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the
Roman law.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Barton's books and speeches are filled with misquotes and statements
attributed to historical figures that no credible scholars have been
able to find. He cherry picks evidence to Bolster's claims
about the founder's religious beliefs. Bartin, for instance, made up
a story that Jefferson started the practice of holding church
services in the US capital. More reputable scholars argue that
(28:52):
while there's evidence that Jefferson attended one service held at
the Capitol building, there's no evidence that he approved them officially.
What's more, Jefferson was far from an orthodox Christian or
the sort of Christian that dominates conservativism today. He edited
and published The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,
commonly referred to as the Jeffersonian Bible. Which is a
(29:14):
condensed version of Jesus's teachings from the Bible that excludes
all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural,
the resurrection, the raising of the dead, and so on.
These sort of facts are the subject of Barton's twenty
twenty two New York Times bestseller, ironically titled The Jefferson Lies,
Exposing the Myths You Always believed about Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
For instance, Barton depicted Jefferson as defining the United States
as a Christian nation. Here's the real Jefferson in his
seventeen eighty five book Notes on the State of Virginia.
Speaker 14 (29:49):
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only
as are injurious to others. But it does mean no
injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty
gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor
breaks my leg.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Barton's book on Jefferson went too far for even some
of Barton's fellow Christian Conservatives. The History News Network website
derided the book as quote the least credible history book
in print. Ten Christian conservative scholars so harshly criticized Barton's
book that his publisher withdrew it from circulation because it
had quote lost confidence in the book's details. Yet, in
(30:28):
spite of the questions regarding its truthfulness, another evangelical publishing
company eventually released a new version.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
In spite of his flexible relationship with the truth, Barton
is a major player in Republican Party politics. On a podcast,
Barton claimed that Republican US House Speaker Mike Johnson consulted
with him about staffing at the Capitol. Johnson made his
speech at a wall building event, telling the audience that
the Theocratic evangelists had quote a profound influence on me,
(31:06):
my work, my life, and everything I do.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Because of Barton's influence, the state of Texas recently okayed
public schools teaching Bible stories to kindergarten children. Former Arkansas
governor and Republican presidential candidate and Trump's choice to be
ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, owns the company that designed
those lesson plans.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Huckabee has long produced so called history videos for school
children that promote Christian nationalism and the idea of the
United States has a unique relationship with God, such as
a series aimed at older children called One Nation Under God,
which portrays a revolutionary war soldier and George Washington suggesting
God was on their side.
Speaker 7 (31:47):
We will bring the plagues upon our British oppressors, just
as Moses did in ancient Egypt.
Speaker 18 (31:53):
And we will win the same preto. We fight for
the idea that we can make something right here. God's
spirit compels us forward, and the times of fighters upon us.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
This video series may not be shown to kindergarteners in Texas,
but the lessons in the Huckabee Design curriculum clearly favor
a Christian worldview at the expense of other religions. The
scripture field lessons are not required by state law, but
the state will reward school districts with extra tax dollars
per student for teaching Huckaby's product. This is an attractive
(32:29):
offer to the many school districts in Texas that are
currently filing deficit budgets and struggling to raise revenue.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Meanwhile, Barton's political and cultural influence has grown exponentially over
the last decade. One of his political action committees played
a major role in getting Ted Cruz elected to the
United States Senate. He has close allies with Texas Lieutenant
Governor Dan Patrick, who wields power typically held by governors
and other states. Patrick said this at a twenty twenty
(32:57):
two Conservative Political Action convention in Dallas about who he
thinks wrote the US Constitution.
Speaker 19 (33:04):
We were a nation founded upon not the words of
our founders, but.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
The words of God.
Speaker 19 (33:08):
Because he wrote the Constitution, he empowered them. We were
a Christian state, and we've been blessed because of that
for so many years.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
In twenty ten, the Texas State School Board for the
first time required that textbook publishers portray a particular biblical
figure as an honorary founding father. This supposed founder was
famously portrayed in the nineteen fifty six box office smash
by Charlton Heston, who later served as a five term
(33:39):
president of the National Rifle Association.
Speaker 18 (33:42):
Woo unto the you're Israel, you have sinned a great
sin in the sight of God.
Speaker 12 (33:51):
You are not worthy to receive these ten commandments.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
In Texas, regardless of a lack of evidence, textbook publisher
are required to tell students that Moses, the prophet depicted
in Judeo Christian scripture as well as the Qur'an, as
leading the Hebrews out of slavery was a major influence
on the authors of the Constitution. Furthermore, under Barton's influence,
the state of Louisiana enacted a law in June twenty
(34:17):
twenty four which requires every public school classroom in the
state to prominently display a version of the Ten Commandments
from the Book of Exodus, derived from Protestant translations of
the Bible. This past November, a federal court issued an
injuction barring enforcement of the law.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
With Barton's encouragement, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick fought to get
a similar bill passed in Texas that would have required
every classroom to feature a display of the Ten Commandments
at least sixteen inches wide and twenty inches tall, and,
as the law put it, quote in a size and
typeface that is legible to a person with average vision
from anywhere in the classroom. The bill passed the state
(34:58):
Senate with unanimous Republican support, but died when it didn't
come before the Texas House in time for a legislative deadline.
As KVUE in Austin reported, Patrick has vowed to continue
his crusade in the coming months.
Speaker 20 (35:11):
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick resurrecting a bill to force
public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
That bill was originally proposed during last year's legislative session,
but missed a key deadline and died in the House.
Louisiana just passed a similar law this week, the Lieutenant
governor posting on x saying quote, Texas would have and
(35:34):
should have been the first state in the nation to
put the Ten Commandments back in our schools end quote.
The Lieutenant Governor says he will pass the bill during
the next legislative session.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Under the Ten Commandments bill, moral codes from other major
world religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism would not be
posted in classrooms, presenting a clear case of a state
government violating the First Amendment. Princeton Histori and Kevin Cruz
explained by such laws like those signed by Louisiana or
Governor Jeff Landry ignore the United States Constitution.
Speaker 13 (36:08):
There are three references to religion and the Constitution. All
three are ones that keep religion at arm's length away
from the state. There is no religious tests required for
office forms. A remarkable revolutionary act at the time, the
First amendment says there will be no national religion established
by the national government. Says that we will not interfere
(36:29):
with your private right to worship or not worship as
you see fit. Right, that is what the Constitution says.
And so Landry says he wanted to put this up
because Moses was the first lawgiver.
Speaker 12 (36:38):
He's not.
Speaker 13 (36:39):
The Code of Hamerabi predates Moses by four centuries or something.
But also, if you want to look at the real
law of the land, put the Constitution up on those walls.
Let students read what the real law of this country
has to say about the proper role of religion in politics.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
The history of posting Ten Commandments signs or plaques are
building such monuments in public spaces over the last seventy
years has an origin that might shock many right wing
cultural warriors who associate Hollywood with godless liberalism. As Cruise
points out in this book One Nation Under God, How
Corporate America invented Christian America. The three hour, forty minute
(37:19):
epic movie The Ten Commandments was a monster hit and
wild audiences with its twenty five thousand member cast and
advanced special effects when it was released in nineteen fifty six,
The movie grossed more than eighty five million dollars. The
film's politically conservative subtext was unmistakable. The director Cecil B.
(37:40):
De Mel hated the New Deal and testified to the
House un American Activities Committee that communists exercised malign influence
over unions, including those in Hollywood, that drove up the
cost of filmmaking.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
The film can be read as a metaphor about the
Cold War, with the oppressive Egyptians representing the Soviet Union
and the freedom loving Hebrews standing in for the United States.
At the beginning of the movie, Demill appears and calls
the movie quote the story of the Birth of Freedom,
the story of Moses. The movie also captures the racism
(38:13):
and ironically, the anti semitism of a country that had
not yet emerged from McCarthyism. The historian Alan Nadell tells
a revealing story of two cast members in The Ten Commandments.
According to the story, during the film's production, Charlton Heston's
wife became pregnant. Demill then told Heston that if his
wife gave birth to a boy, the child would be
(38:34):
cast as the baby Moses.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
When Heston's wife gave.
Speaker 14 (38:37):
Birth to a son.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Demill sent her a telegram saying congratulations, He's got the part.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Meanwhile, an adult actor, Woody Strode, appeared in the film
in two markedly different roles. A former NFL star who
broke the thirteen year informal NFL ban on African American
players when he signed with the Los Angeles Rams in
nineteen forty six, stro played both in an Ethiopian king
and the enslaved attendant of Moses's adopted Egyptian mother. Demill
(39:06):
thought that the audiences could tell whether swaddled white baby
was a boy or a girl, but apparently assumed they
wouldn't notice a black actor playing both a king and
a slave because of the racist belief that all black
people look alike. Meanwhile, a movie set in ancient Egypt
and the Sinai Peninsula featured an almost entirely light skinned cast.
(39:27):
Even though Demill's mother was Jewish, the only Jewish actor
to play a major role was Edward G. Robinson, who
earlier became famous playing gangsters, and who won de Mill's favor,
perhaps because he was a friendly witness before the House
on American Activities Committee during the Communist Witch hunts. Thus,
the one prominent Jewish face in The Ten Commandments was
(39:49):
cast as a bad guy, a Hebrew named Nathan who
continually tries to undermine Moses and convince the escaped slaves
to return to their Egyptian masters.
Speaker 18 (40:00):
You take too much upon yourself.
Speaker 9 (40:04):
We will not live by your commandments.
Speaker 18 (40:06):
We're free.
Speaker 14 (40:08):
There is no freedom without the law.
Speaker 18 (40:12):
Who's law most yours?
Speaker 9 (40:14):
Did you call those tablits to become a prince over us?
Speaker 3 (40:19):
As Cruz documents? When the Ten Commandments film was initially released,
the mill came up with an ingenious marketing strategy. He
teamed up with a conservative anti communist organization, the Fraternal
Order of the Eagles, to establish Ten Commandment monuments across
the country. Around the time that Southern States erected new
Confederate monuments to protest desegregation. Ten Commandment monuments appeared at
(40:42):
the county courthouse in Evansville, Indiana, the Milwaukee City Hall,
and near the US Canadian border in North Dakota. Nearly
one hundred and fifty such monuments were erected across the country.
Momentum stalled during the Civil Rights era to the extent
that in Alabama, State Justice Roy Moore ord ridicule when
he placed, without authorization, a self funded five two hundred
(41:05):
and eighty pound monument in the rotunda of a judicial
building housing State Supreme Court in two thousand and one.
The monument was ordered removed two years later, but once
fringe figures like More have moved closer to the American
political mainstream because of the influence of people like Barton,
Lieutenant Governor Patrick and their allies.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
The contemporary of session with festooning public spaces with religious
artifacts has as much to do with malevolent nostalgia as
with religious zeal Men like anti crt crusader Christopher Rufo,
along with Barton and Patrick, want to return to the
world that made The Ten Commandments film, a world in
(41:46):
which white people are centered, the accomplishments of dark skinned
people are erased or expropriated, and where America stands as
an untainted beacon of freedom in spite of its history
of enslavement, imperialism, and genocide. And now once again, advocates
of historical amnesia have a friend in the White House.
Speaker 10 (42:06):
The time has come to reclaim our once great educational
institutions from the radical left, and we will do that
our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system. It's
called accreditation for a reason. The accreditors are supposed to
ensure that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers,
(42:27):
but they have failed totally. When I return to the
White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors that
have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs
and lunatics.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
On January twenty ninth of this year, Trump issued an
executive order mandating the withdrawal of federal dollars from any
public school that allegedly imprints quote anti American, subversive, harmful,
and false ideologies on our nation's children. This can include
teaching them about transgender identity, proing services to trans students,
(43:02):
or educating students about America's long, bloody promotion of white supremacy, homophobia,
or transphobia. The order also requires public schools to provide
quote unquote patriotic education. Those like Trump, Barton, and others
who have clamored the loudest about schools as centers of
indoctrination are now imposing their own form of propaganda, returning
(43:25):
history classes from kindergarten to graduate schools to the days
of the nineteen twenties and the nineteen thirties, when textbook
writers praised fascist dictators for keeping unions in their place,
and those willing to die to end slavery were painted
as the bad guys.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
In the Civil Rights era, black and brown parents boycotted
public schools that discriminated to undermine their funding, created their
own freedom schools that provided lessons in black and brown history,
and marched against the old Jim Crow laws. Parents who
want their children receive an honest accounting of the nation's
past will do well to learn from these predecessors and
(44:02):
to disrupt the meetings of right wing school boards as
loudly and enthusiastically as the parents who were conned into
a frenzy about the phantom dangers of CRT. This is
Michael Phillips.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
And this is Stephen Monicelli.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Thanks to Betsy Freoff for reading passages from textbooks, and
to Dan Glass for reading quotes from the founding fathers.
Of course, thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
It could happen. Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for it could happen here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Cool Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Michael Phillips. I wrote a history of racism in
Dallas called White Metropolis, and have co authored an upcoming
book on the history of eugenics in Texas called The
Purifying Knife.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
And I'm Stephen Monticelli, an investigative reporter and columnist who
covers extremism and far right movements for a variety of publications,
including The Texas Observer and The Barbed Wire.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
School board meetings used to be boring. Board members typically
spend hours discussing financial reports, land purchases, plumbing contracts, and
other tedious topics. But beginning in twenty twenty, Christopher Ruffo,
a former documentary filmmaker and fellow at the right wing
Heritage Foundation, the group responsible for Project twenty twenty five,
(00:50):
launched a campaign to convince Americans that public schools have
become communists and doctrination centers. RUFO falsely claimed that public
school teachres were brainwashing school children with something called critical
race theory or CRT for short. Adherents of critical race
theory argue that racism has become so intrinsically entwined in
(01:13):
American politics, law, and culture that anti discrimination laws typically
fail While CRT is studied in some graduate schools and
law programs, it hasn't been taught at the grade school level,
where the outrage has been directed.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That's certainly not the case in Texas, which influences curriculums
across the nation due to its large population and purchasing
power of textbooks. But precision wasn't the point of Rufo's campaign. Rather,
it was to refashion CRT into a sort of political cudgel,
something that Rufo admitted to in a series of tweets
(01:48):
in twenty twenty one. The goal is to have the
public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think critical.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Race theory, Rufo wrote.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
We have decotify the term and will recodify it to
annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular
with Americans.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
On Fox News, Newsmax and other right wing media outlets,
Rufo convinced parents that instead of teaching kids reading, writing,
and arithmetic, public school teachers were using CRT to brainwash
white children into hating themselves and goading black children into
hating white people. Radical teachers and professors, Rufo warned, had
(02:30):
launched a sinister campaign to destroy the American way of life.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
In a foundational paper called Whiteness's Property, the critical race
theorist Cheryl Harris has proposed suspending private property rights, seizing
land and wealth from the rich and redistributing it along
racial lines.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Rufa's timing could not have been more perfect. The artificial
CRT panic broke out during the COVID pandemic. Parents already
felt frustration and fury about the hard ships of campus closings,
remote learning, and mass mandates, now convinced that their children
were being taught to scapegoat white people for all the
(03:08):
country's problems. Parents across the country exploded in rage at
local school boards. Reuters reported on one meaning that turned
violent in Loudon County, Virginia.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
What had been planned as a typical school board meeting
in Virginia's wealthy Louden County this week devolved into pandemonium,
with hundreds of parents flooding an auditorium to accuse the
school system of teaching their kids that racism in America
is structural and systemic, something the school board denies as
(03:45):
part of the curriculum. Things got so heated that the
board members eventually walked out leaving the police to deal
with the unruly crowd. Two people left in handcuffs. Louden
County School Board has been roiled for months by accusations
that it has embraced critical race theory, a school of
(04:08):
thought that maintains that racism is ingrained in US law
and institutions, and that legacies of slavery and segregation have
created an uneven playing field for black Americans. The idea
that CRT, as it's known, is infiltrating public schools has
become a rallying cry for conservatives, who, like many in Louden,
(04:29):
say it is being used to indoctrinate children that America
is a racist country.
Speaker 7 (04:34):
Critical race theory is anti white, and it's not American.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Those within a year for historical rhymes may find this
outcry familiar. Resistance to racial integration and the Civil rights
era movements drew similar accusations of being hostile to whites
and being a product of anti American communism, and those
with experienced teaching students might chuckle at the accusations of
ideologically motivated brainwas an indoctrination. A common joke posted by
(05:03):
teachers online is that quote, if we could indoctrinate students.
Students would always read the syllabus, but that didn't stop
panic over CRT expanding to include anti LGBTQ sentiment as well,
with queer students and teachers who supported them being placed
squarely in the crosshairs of a well funded national hate
machine dedicated to ginning up fear among local parents. Here's
(05:28):
a clip from one speech I personally witnessed at the
school board meeting of my hometown school district, grape Vine Kullyville,
from August twenty twenty two, and very simple truths.
Speaker 8 (05:38):
There's only two genders, and boys should go to boys rooms,
girls should go to girls' restrooms. And guess what teachers
should be forced to use Your freaking made up fantasy.
Speaker 9 (05:49):
Pronouns find like hall hold the line against the LGBT
mafia and their dang pedo fans hate winning. You know what,
keep the wing they you keep the monkey cocks.
Speaker 10 (06:03):
How's that work?
Speaker 11 (06:04):
It?
Speaker 10 (06:05):
The keep wrings so much, We'll keep come.
Speaker 8 (06:07):
You know what, We're.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Gonna keeck come so hard.
Speaker 9 (06:10):
The only thing these bullcards have to figure out is
whiler tell their face back one thighs. Wow, it's all.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
As absurd as all this may seem there was something
to this national phenomenon that was rooted in reality. As
of twenty twenty, the United States had become more culturally diverse,
racially integrated, and accepting of LGBTQ people than ever before,
and our education systems have increasingly reflected that reality. There's
also a deep irony to this reaction. Prior to the
(06:42):
advances of the Civil Rights era and beyond, schools in
the United States have often been the centers of ideologically
motivated education, but not the fantasy Bolshevik propaganda that outrages
the right. In fact, it's usually been the opposite. For
most of its history, American public schools have effectively advanced
white supremacy, female subordination, and submission to capitalism. In this episode,
(07:07):
we're going to look at what has actually been taught
in American schools over the years, with a particular focus
in Texas, and how what you learn about American history
depends on where you live and how Christian supremacists are
successfully inserting their theology into school curriculums in much of
the country, with Texas playing a leading role.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Textbooks before the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties Civil Rights
era were explicitly and astonishingly white supremacists. Schoolbooks in the South,
for instance, portrayed Confederates as gallant gentlemen fighting for a
noble loss cause. This influenced popular culture, as we see
in films like Gone with the Wind. Meanwhile, school kids
(07:48):
were taught that abolitionists who wanted to end slavery before
the Civil War were terrorists who needlessly plunged the country
into civil war, and this too steeped into the public
imagination of movies like NFA Trail starring Van Heflin.
Speaker 12 (08:04):
The time is coming when the rest of us are
going to wipe you, and you're kind off the face
of the earth.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
According to the myths promoted first in schools then echoed
in mass entertainment, slavery would have gone away eventually if
only white slave owning Southerners had been left alone to
figure it out themselves. Screenplaywriters have often echoed what they
heard in the classroom is we see In this scene
from the nineteen forty film Santa Fe Trail. Here Raymond
(08:33):
Massey plays John Brown, a white abolitionist who tried to
start a slave rebellion Harper's Ferry Virginia in eighteen fifty nine.
Massey portrays him as a thoroughly crazed maniac, while Aero
Flynn depicts future Confederate General J. E. B. Stewart as
sweetly rational.
Speaker 12 (08:52):
Half of the people in America believe in your theory,
A lot of them, even Condonia methods that'll guarantee you
a public trial.
Speaker 13 (09:00):
I'm not on trial, but the nation itself?
Speaker 12 (09:04):
Are you too stupid and blinded by.
Speaker 14 (09:05):
A uniform to see what I see?
Speaker 12 (09:08):
A dark and evil curse laying all over this land?
Speaker 15 (09:12):
A kind will sin against God can only be wiped
out in blood?
Speaker 12 (09:16):
But why in blood? The people of Virginia are considered
a resolution to abolic slavery for a long time. They
sense that the tomorrow wrong, and the rest of the
South will follow Virginia's example. All I ask is time.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
From the eighteen eighties until the nineteen sixties, school books
depicted the country's only brief experiment with multiracial democracy at
the time, the Reconstruction period from eighteen sixty five to
eighteen seventy seven, as a time of rampant corruption. These
books often described emancipated African Americans as ignorant lazy and
(09:51):
expecting government handouts, while their white allies were portrayed as crooks.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
American school children furthermore learned from their teacher that so
called radical democracy was not a good idea, and sometimes
dictatorship was the better option. The nineteen twenty four textbook
Are World Today and Yesterday, a History of Modern Civilization,
published two years after Mussolini's fascist government took over Italy,
(10:18):
had nothing but praise for that nation's new dictator. The
authors told the impressionable high school students the following about
the world's first fascist leader.
Speaker 16 (10:27):
Mussolini has chosen a ministry made up of capable men
and has straightened up the badly demoralized finances of the country.
He and his followers are accused of suppressing liberty and
downing the communists by violence. Nevertheless, he has done much
to do away with strikes and to re establish conditions
(10:48):
as they were before the economic demoralization of World War
One set in again.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
School books reinforced an American culture in the nineteen twenties
that responded to the horror of World War One, labor unrest,
and the impact of immigration by becoming not only more
intolerant but also more anti democratic.
Speaker 15 (11:09):
All the while, Mussolini's propaganda machine churned out images of
a thriving country and a via leader Iluch stripped down
for the camera bok side by side with the peasants
and wrestled wild animals. Never mind that this one had
no teeth. Nonetheless, it was working. Mussolini attracted fans worldwide,
(11:30):
including Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud, and Mohandas Gandhi. Here he
speaks to his many supporters among Italian Americans, I.
Speaker 17 (11:39):
Tell it the Italians of America, who I want to
make America greed.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Another textbook, published in nineteen thirty five, The Record of America,
told stins that the so called Founding fathers like Alexander
Hamilton were not big believers in democracy, an attitude the
authors seemed to endorse. As the Record of America put it.
Speaker 16 (12:02):
The Founders had little faith in the ability of people
as a whole to maintain self control and wisdom in government.
They had no confidence in the man without property. A
man who had failed to accumulate property would be regarded
as shiftless, lazy, or incompetent, and not deserving a voice
(12:23):
in the government of others. The Constitution was written to
retain power in the hands of those who release radical
and to set obstacles in the way of radical mob action.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
After the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties civil rights movements,
history textbooks for the first time covered the horrors of slavery,
the heroism of African American abolitionists like Surgeon or truth
in Frederick Douglas, and the evils of the Ku Klux
Klan with clarity. But the backlash was swift, particularly after
the election of the first African American president, Barack Obama
(13:00):
and the rise of the hyper conservative Tea Party.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
In response, in twenty ten.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Tea Party supporters took control of the Texas State school Board,
which has control over Texas school book curriculums. They felt
that this reckoning with America's racist past undermined patriotism and
demanded a rewrite of school lesson plans.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
In twenty fifteen, Ronnie Dean Baron got a text from
her son Kobe, who was glancing at a ninth grade geography
textbook published by McGraw hill signed him by his high
school in Perilyn, Texas, near Houston. He sent her a
video highlighting a map in its shocking caption. Soon Burn
(13:50):
posted her son's video online. That video, as KPRC reported,
spread outrage across the nation.
Speaker 17 (13:57):
A video post on Ronnie Dean Buren's face book page.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
So I'm going to show you the book and then
there's just an interesting.
Speaker 17 (14:04):
Section, went viral. Her video has been viewed more than
one point eight million times and has forty eight thousand shares.
To get to the topic of conversation, you literally have
to turn through the pages of her son's geography textbook.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
The immigration in the United States can be divided in
four district periods.
Speaker 17 (14:21):
Kobe, who's in the ninth grade at Perlin High School,
was studying immigration when he read this in his textbook,
a comment that referenced African slaves as workers.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
As if we worked our way up in America, as
if we came here by choice for a better life.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
The offensive caption read, in full quote, the Atlantic slave
trade between the fifteen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds brought
millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States
to work.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
On agricultural plantations.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
The publisher of the book, simply titled World Geography later
apologized for the euphemism, noting that it did not adequately
convey that Africans were both forced into migration and to
labor against their will as slaves. The company said it
would revise the digital version of the text and future
print versions, but it was unclear at the time when
(15:12):
the new edition would be in students' hands.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
The caption wasnt an accident. McGraw hill had given the
Stay of Texas what it wanted, rather than anything like
critical race theory. The State Board of Education twenty ten
adopted changes in Texas curriculum standards for public schools, known
as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills that imposed a whitewash
of American slavery, raised doubts about human caused climate change,
(15:39):
and imposed other right wing content to be sold in
Texas school textbooks had to meet the board's standards.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Texas State Board of Education members are elected from districts
that tilt the body towards rural parts of the state
and serve four year terms, while the governor appoints the
chair of the board. Since the beginning of the twenty
first century, the board has been dominated by Christian right activists.
As a twenty thirteen PBS report.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
Deaths Don McElroy has three jobs and he loves them all.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Good morning got to mclary's office.
Speaker 7 (16:12):
Job number one dentist, job number two Sunday school teacher,
and job number three member of the Texas State Board
of Education, a seat he's held for the last twelve years.
But it's that third job which has put this dentist
and Sunday school teacher from Brian, Texas into a national
(16:33):
debate over what kids are taught in school. Critics have
accused McLeroy of injecting his religious conservative beliefs into the curriculum.
About every ten years, the board revises the textbook standards
for different subjects. Any books bought by the state must
conform to these guidelines. The last big battle was over
(16:53):
the science standards. This year he's tackling social studies.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
The demands Texas makes of textbook publishers matter, as PBS
reported a decade ago.
Speaker 7 (17:05):
According to publishing insiders, textbooks are often tailored to fit
Texas's standards. Because Texas is the largest buyer of textbooks.
That means the choices made here could determine books that
other states will buy, and that's led to a school
fight that has the entire country looking on.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
This is how Kobe Burn ended up with the World
Geography textbook that used the word workers to describe chattel slaves.
Kathy Miller of the anti censorship group Texas Freedom Network said, quote,
it's no accident that this happened in Texas. We have
a textbook adoption process that's so politicized and so flawed
(17:44):
that's become almost a punchline for comedians. Those serious about
education aren't laughing. However, in twenty eighteen, the state board
removed Hillary Clinton, the first woman to be presidential nominee
of a major political party, from the list of major
historic figures Texas students must learn about, a decision later
reversed after embarrassing news coverage. In twenty ten, that board
(18:08):
mandated that textbooks depict the Civil War as primarily a
struggle over states' rights and not slavery, a choice that
was later modified in twenty eighteen to return slavery as
the primary cause, but still maintained that quote states rights
and sexualism were key contributing factors. Approved books still tell
(18:29):
students that segregated black schools and the Jim Crow Eric
quote had similar buildings, buses, and teachers as white schools,
maintaining a hint of these separate but equal logics that
upheld segregation. One textbook included cartoon in which a space
alien lands on Earth and asks if he's eligible for
affirmative action programs. Texas standards also misled students into thinking
(18:53):
there was controversy about whether human activity has led to
climate change and to quote consider all sides of scientist
evidence regarding evolution, even though the scientific consensus in favor
of fossil fuels trinking climate change and also the scientific
consensus regarding evolution is nearly unanimous. Students can get dramatically
(19:14):
different versions of American history based on which state they
attend schools. A New York Times comparison textbooks used at
California Texas show that both versions of the same history
textbook include an annotated Bill of rights in reference to
the Second Amendment. However, the California textbook notes that several
(19:34):
federal court rulings have allowed regulation of gun sales and ownership.
The Texas version of the same book replaces US commentary
with a quote blank white space. As The New York Times.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Reported, Texas and California textbooks both introduced students to African
American authors during the Harlem Renaissance, but only Texas students
are told that quote. Some dismissed the quality of the
literature produced by the Harlem Renaissance.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
As The New York Times reported. The California version of
the history textbook addressed the issue of white flight, the
phenomena whereby parents moved from cities when schools became integrated
and moved to overwhelmingly Anglo suburbs. The California textbooks said this.
Speaker 16 (20:20):
Some people wished to escape the crime and the congestion
of the city. Movement of some white people from cities
to suburbs was driven by a desire to get away
from more culturally diverse neighborhoods. Others believed the suburbs offered
better and more affordable living.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
The Texas version of the same textbook deleted the sentence
referring to racism as a motive for white flight, but
left the reference to a fear of crime, reframing what
students learned about why suburbs grew so rapidly after World
War Two. The Texas State Board also specifically asked one
textbook publisher demphasized how many clergies signed the Declaration of
(21:00):
Independence and to underscore the supposed importance of religion to
the founders. These particular demands were the result of intense
lobbying by Texas Christian nationalist David Barton.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Barton, a seventy year old lifelong resident of Aledo, Texas,
which is a small town just southwest of Fort Worth,
has become a major influence on the Republican Party and
its attitudes towards education, not just in the Lone Star State,
but across the nation. While reporting on the Conservative Political
Action Conference for Rolling Stone, I recall being given a
(21:36):
copy of one of Barton's books. He calls himself a historian,
although his only credential is a bachelor's degree in religious
education from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A one
time science and math teacher at a Christian academy in
his hometown, Barton plunged into politics in nineteen eighty eight
as a Republican activist with a penchant for homophobia. He
(22:00):
declared that homosexuality is as evil as any deed Adolf
Hitler committed and said that the lack of cure for
AIDS was God's punishment for a wicked community. Quote, your
sexual choice is not a God given right, he said
on one occasion.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
In nineteen eighty eight, Barton founded Wall Builders, a nonprofit.
The organization says dedicated to quote educating the nation concerning
the godly founding of the nation. Barton believes that Americans
have been deceived about the true meaning of the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declares, quote, Congress
shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion.
(22:39):
The Founders, Barton claims, only meant that Congress should pick
a particular Protestant denomination as the national faith. Barton also
argues that Thomas Jefferson meant that the wall of separation
between church and state should operate only in one direction,
that the government should not interfere with a religion, but
that Christians should dominate the government. As Barton said in
(23:02):
an interview.
Speaker 11 (23:03):
So we've got to get away from being scared to
say we're a Christian nation. What we've got to do
is to find it the right way, define it the
historical way. We can't let the left steal three hundred
years of heritage. We can't let them wipe out three
hundred core cases, wipe out what dozens of presents and
governors have said, simply because they don't like the term,
we are.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
A Christian nation.
Speaker 11 (23:24):
We have been a Christian nation, and that doesn't mean
anything they think it does. We're not theocratic, we're not coercive.
We believe in free choice. We don't believe in any
of the others. And that's what we've got to get
back to doing. We don't need to be ashamed at
all that we're Christians and that we believe we have
a Christian nation.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
The story is much more complicated than Barton says, and
he gets the most important details wrong. Most of the
generation that led the Revolution and wrote the Constitution agreed
with Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence,
that when church and state mix, both are harmed. Jefferson
successfully established separation of church and state in his home
(24:00):
state of Virginia in seventeen eighty six when it adopted
the Statute of Religious Freedom he authored. The first Amendment,
adopted in seventeen eighty nine, also banned Congress from quote
establishing a religion, and most states embraced, to varying degrees,
the doctrine of church state separation.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
There were some states that objected to this notion. The
state governments of Connecticut and Massachusetts, for instance, initially interpreted
the First Amendment as meaning only Congress could not establish religion,
but states could. Citizens of those two states paid taxes
that supported the Congregationalist Church, respectively, until eighteen eighteen. In
(24:38):
eighteen thirty three, for decades, some states had so called
quote Jew laws that prohibited non Christians from holding office
or had similar bands on Catholics. Such laws were the exception, however,
and fell by the wayside by the end of the
nineteenth century. The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in eighteen sixty eight,
placed the same limits on state power that were placed
(25:01):
on the federal government regarding the establishment of religion, a
limitation upheld in the nineteen forty seven Supreme Court case.
Ever since versus Board of Education.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Artin has campaigned to overwrite that history with his own
alternative narrative. Towards that end, he's collected approximately one hundred
thousand primary documents written before eighteen twelve. Based on that
selection of material, he argues that American leaders like Washington, Jefferson, Adams,
and their peers wanted only Christians to lead the nation.
(25:32):
And that American law should be based on the Bible.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Barton believes that not just the Bible, but also the
original United States Constitution, which includes provisions protecting slavery such
as the Three Fifths Compromise, were directly inspired by God.
He asserts, again with no evidence and without defining terms,
that fifty two of the fifty five signers of the
(25:56):
Declaration of Independence were, in his words, quote orthodized or
evangelical Christians. In reality, the early leaders of America didn't
speak with one mind regarding religion. Many were deists who
saw God not as a deity invested in the daily
lives of humans, but as a dispassionate clockmaker who put
(26:18):
the gears the universe together, wound it up, and let
it run on its own. Their God didn't intervene in
history or perform miracle healings at spiritual revivals. When Ben
Franklin proposed opening the first session the seventeen eighty seven
Constitutional Convention with a prayer, the proposal was voted down,
with only four approving Franklin's motion, and a gathering that
(26:41):
as many as fifty five attended on any given day.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
In their letters, many of the founding fathers scoffed at
the accuracy of the Bible and the reliability of its
myriad translations. As John Adams said of the Bible.
Speaker 14 (26:55):
In an age when fraud, forgery, and perjury were considered
as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators, and theologians,
what may not be suspected.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Benjamin Franklin told his friend Ezra Styles that Jesus was
a wise philosopher, but that he had personal doubts that
Christ was the son of God. Franklin questioned whether the
depiction of Christ's life or even his teachings as describing
the Gospels, could be trusted.
Speaker 14 (27:26):
As to Jesus of Nazareth, I think the system of
morals and his religion as he left them to us
the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see.
But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and
I have doubt with most of the present dissenters in
(27:47):
England as to his divinity, though it is a question
I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
And Thomas Jefferson, who Barton insists, believe that the American
government should be based on Christian values, was even more
blunt about a central Christian belief regarding Jesus and his
virgin birth.
Speaker 14 (28:09):
Jefferson wrote, Jesus was a man of illegitimate birth, of
a benevolent heart and an enthusiastic mind, who set out
without pretensions of divinity, ended in believing them, and was
punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the
Roman law.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Barton's books and speeches are filled with misquotes and statements
attributed to historical figures that no credible scholars have been
able to find. He cherry picks evidence to Bolster's claims
about the founder's religious beliefs. Bartin, for instance, made up
a story that Jefferson started the practice of holding church
services in the US capital. More reputable scholars argue that
(28:52):
while there's evidence that Jefferson attended one service held at
the Capitol building, there's no evidence that he approved them officially.
What's more, Jefferson was far from an orthodox Christian or
the sort of Christian that dominates conservativism today. He edited
and published The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,
commonly referred to as the Jeffersonian Bible. Which is a
(29:14):
condensed version of Jesus's teachings from the Bible that excludes
all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural,
the resurrection, the raising of the dead, and so on.
These sort of facts are the subject of Barton's twenty
twenty two New York Times bestseller, ironically titled The Jefferson Lies,
Exposing the Myths You Always believed about Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
For instance, Barton depicted Jefferson as defining the United States
as a Christian nation. Here's the real Jefferson in his
seventeen eighty five book Notes on the State of Virginia.
Speaker 14 (29:49):
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only
as are injurious to others. But it does mean no
injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty
gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor
breaks my leg.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Barton's book on Jefferson went too far for even some
of Barton's fellow Christian Conservatives. The History News Network website
derided the book as quote the least credible history book
in print. Ten Christian conservative scholars so harshly criticized Barton's
book that his publisher withdrew it from circulation because it
had quote lost confidence in the book's details. Yet, in
(30:28):
spite of the questions regarding its truthfulness, another evangelical publishing
company eventually released a new version.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
In spite of his flexible relationship with the truth, Barton
is a major player in Republican Party politics. On a podcast,
Barton claimed that Republican US House Speaker Mike Johnson consulted
with him about staffing at the Capitol. Johnson made his
speech at a wall building event, telling the audience that
the Theocratic evangelists had quote a profound influence on me,
(31:06):
my work, my life, and everything I do.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Because of Barton's influence, the state of Texas recently okayed
public schools teaching Bible stories to kindergarten children. Former Arkansas
governor and Republican presidential candidate and Trump's choice to be
ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, owns the company that designed
those lesson plans.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Huckabee has long produced so called history videos for school
children that promote Christian nationalism and the idea of the
United States has a unique relationship with God, such as
a series aimed at older children called One Nation Under God,
which portrays a revolutionary war soldier and George Washington suggesting
God was on their side.
Speaker 7 (31:47):
We will bring the plagues upon our British oppressors, just
as Moses did in ancient Egypt.
Speaker 18 (31:53):
And we will win the same preto. We fight for
the idea that we can make something right here. God's
spirit compels us forward, and the times of fighters upon us.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
This video series may not be shown to kindergarteners in Texas,
but the lessons in the Huckabee Design curriculum clearly favor
a Christian worldview at the expense of other religions. The
scripture field lessons are not required by state law, but
the state will reward school districts with extra tax dollars
per student for teaching Huckaby's product. This is an attractive
(32:29):
offer to the many school districts in Texas that are
currently filing deficit budgets and struggling to raise revenue.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Meanwhile, Barton's political and cultural influence has grown exponentially over
the last decade. One of his political action committees played
a major role in getting Ted Cruz elected to the
United States Senate. He has close allies with Texas Lieutenant
Governor Dan Patrick, who wields power typically held by governors
and other states. Patrick said this at a twenty twenty
(32:57):
two Conservative Political Action convention in Dallas about who he
thinks wrote the US Constitution.
Speaker 19 (33:04):
We were a nation founded upon not the words of
our founders, but.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
The words of God.
Speaker 19 (33:08):
Because he wrote the Constitution, he empowered them. We were
a Christian state, and we've been blessed because of that
for so many years.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
In twenty ten, the Texas State School Board for the
first time required that textbook publishers portray a particular biblical
figure as an honorary founding father. This supposed founder was
famously portrayed in the nineteen fifty six box office smash
by Charlton Heston, who later served as a five term
(33:39):
president of the National Rifle Association.
Speaker 18 (33:42):
Woo unto the you're Israel, you have sinned a great
sin in the sight of God.
Speaker 12 (33:51):
You are not worthy to receive these ten commandments.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
In Texas, regardless of a lack of evidence, textbook publisher
are required to tell students that Moses, the prophet depicted
in Judeo Christian scripture as well as the Qur'an, as
leading the Hebrews out of slavery was a major influence
on the authors of the Constitution. Furthermore, under Barton's influence,
the state of Louisiana enacted a law in June twenty
(34:17):
twenty four which requires every public school classroom in the
state to prominently display a version of the Ten Commandments
from the Book of Exodus, derived from Protestant translations of
the Bible. This past November, a federal court issued an
injuction barring enforcement of the law.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
With Barton's encouragement, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick fought to get
a similar bill passed in Texas that would have required
every classroom to feature a display of the Ten Commandments
at least sixteen inches wide and twenty inches tall, and,
as the law put it, quote in a size and
typeface that is legible to a person with average vision
from anywhere in the classroom. The bill passed the state
(34:58):
Senate with unanimous Republican support, but died when it didn't
come before the Texas House in time for a legislative deadline.
As KVUE in Austin reported, Patrick has vowed to continue
his crusade in the coming months.
Speaker 20 (35:11):
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick resurrecting a bill to force
public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
That bill was originally proposed during last year's legislative session,
but missed a key deadline and died in the House.
Louisiana just passed a similar law this week, the Lieutenant
governor posting on x saying quote, Texas would have and
(35:34):
should have been the first state in the nation to
put the Ten Commandments back in our schools end quote.
The Lieutenant Governor says he will pass the bill during
the next legislative session.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Under the Ten Commandments bill, moral codes from other major
world religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism would not be
posted in classrooms, presenting a clear case of a state
government violating the First Amendment. Princeton Histori and Kevin Cruz
explained by such laws like those signed by Louisiana or
Governor Jeff Landry ignore the United States Constitution.
Speaker 13 (36:08):
There are three references to religion and the Constitution. All
three are ones that keep religion at arm's length away
from the state. There is no religious tests required for
office forms. A remarkable revolutionary act at the time, the
First amendment says there will be no national religion established
by the national government. Says that we will not interfere
(36:29):
with your private right to worship or not worship as
you see fit. Right, that is what the Constitution says.
And so Landry says he wanted to put this up
because Moses was the first lawgiver.
Speaker 12 (36:38):
He's not.
Speaker 13 (36:39):
The Code of Hamerabi predates Moses by four centuries or something.
But also, if you want to look at the real
law of the land, put the Constitution up on those walls.
Let students read what the real law of this country
has to say about the proper role of religion in politics.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
The history of posting Ten Commandments signs or plaques are
building such monuments in public spaces over the last seventy
years has an origin that might shock many right wing
cultural warriors who associate Hollywood with godless liberalism. As Cruise
points out in this book One Nation Under God, How
Corporate America invented Christian America. The three hour, forty minute
(37:19):
epic movie The Ten Commandments was a monster hit and
wild audiences with its twenty five thousand member cast and
advanced special effects when it was released in nineteen fifty six,
The movie grossed more than eighty five million dollars. The
film's politically conservative subtext was unmistakable. The director Cecil B.
(37:40):
De Mel hated the New Deal and testified to the
House un American Activities Committee that communists exercised malign influence
over unions, including those in Hollywood, that drove up the
cost of filmmaking.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
The film can be read as a metaphor about the
Cold War, with the oppressive Egyptians representing the Soviet Union
and the freedom loving Hebrews standing in for the United States.
At the beginning of the movie, Demill appears and calls
the movie quote the story of the Birth of Freedom,
the story of Moses. The movie also captures the racism
(38:13):
and ironically, the anti semitism of a country that had
not yet emerged from McCarthyism. The historian Alan Nadell tells
a revealing story of two cast members in The Ten Commandments.
According to the story, during the film's production, Charlton Heston's
wife became pregnant. Demill then told Heston that if his
wife gave birth to a boy, the child would be
(38:34):
cast as the baby Moses.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
When Heston's wife gave.
Speaker 14 (38:37):
Birth to a son.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Demill sent her a telegram saying congratulations, He's got the part.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Meanwhile, an adult actor, Woody Strode, appeared in the film
in two markedly different roles. A former NFL star who
broke the thirteen year informal NFL ban on African American
players when he signed with the Los Angeles Rams in
nineteen forty six, stro played both in an Ethiopian king
and the enslaved attendant of Moses's adopted Egyptian mother. Demill
(39:06):
thought that the audiences could tell whether swaddled white baby
was a boy or a girl, but apparently assumed they
wouldn't notice a black actor playing both a king and
a slave because of the racist belief that all black
people look alike. Meanwhile, a movie set in ancient Egypt
and the Sinai Peninsula featured an almost entirely light skinned cast.
(39:27):
Even though Demill's mother was Jewish, the only Jewish actor
to play a major role was Edward G. Robinson, who
earlier became famous playing gangsters, and who won de Mill's favor,
perhaps because he was a friendly witness before the House
on American Activities Committee during the Communist Witch hunts. Thus,
the one prominent Jewish face in The Ten Commandments was
(39:49):
cast as a bad guy, a Hebrew named Nathan who
continually tries to undermine Moses and convince the escaped slaves
to return to their Egyptian masters.
Speaker 18 (40:00):
You take too much upon yourself.
Speaker 9 (40:04):
We will not live by your commandments.
Speaker 18 (40:06):
We're free.
Speaker 14 (40:08):
There is no freedom without the law.
Speaker 18 (40:12):
Who's law most yours?
Speaker 9 (40:14):
Did you call those tablits to become a prince over us?
Speaker 3 (40:19):
As Cruz documents? When the Ten Commandments film was initially released,
the mill came up with an ingenious marketing strategy. He
teamed up with a conservative anti communist organization, the Fraternal
Order of the Eagles, to establish Ten Commandment monuments across
the country. Around the time that Southern States erected new
Confederate monuments to protest desegregation. Ten Commandment monuments appeared at
(40:42):
the county courthouse in Evansville, Indiana, the Milwaukee City Hall,
and near the US Canadian border in North Dakota. Nearly
one hundred and fifty such monuments were erected across the country.
Momentum stalled during the Civil Rights era to the extent
that in Alabama, State Justice Roy Moore ord ridicule when
he placed, without authorization, a self funded five two hundred
(41:05):
and eighty pound monument in the rotunda of a judicial
building housing State Supreme Court in two thousand and one.
The monument was ordered removed two years later, but once
fringe figures like More have moved closer to the American
political mainstream because of the influence of people like Barton,
Lieutenant Governor Patrick and their allies.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
The contemporary of session with festooning public spaces with religious
artifacts has as much to do with malevolent nostalgia as
with religious zeal Men like anti crt crusader Christopher Rufo,
along with Barton and Patrick, want to return to the
world that made The Ten Commandments film, a world in
(41:46):
which white people are centered, the accomplishments of dark skinned
people are erased or expropriated, and where America stands as
an untainted beacon of freedom in spite of its history
of enslavement, imperialism, and genocide. And now once again, advocates
of historical amnesia have a friend in the White House.
Speaker 10 (42:06):
The time has come to reclaim our once great educational
institutions from the radical left, and we will do that
our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system. It's
called accreditation for a reason. The accreditors are supposed to
ensure that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers,
(42:27):
but they have failed totally. When I return to the
White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors that
have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs
and lunatics.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
On January twenty ninth of this year, Trump issued an
executive order mandating the withdrawal of federal dollars from any
public school that allegedly imprints quote anti American, subversive, harmful,
and false ideologies on our nation's children. This can include
teaching them about transgender identity, proing services to trans students,
(43:02):
or educating students about America's long, bloody promotion of white supremacy, homophobia,
or transphobia. The order also requires public schools to provide
quote unquote patriotic education. Those like Trump, Barton, and others
who have clamored the loudest about schools as centers of
indoctrination are now imposing their own form of propaganda, returning
(43:25):
history classes from kindergarten to graduate schools to the days
of the nineteen twenties and the nineteen thirties, when textbook
writers praised fascist dictators for keeping unions in their place,
and those willing to die to end slavery were painted
as the bad guys.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
In the Civil Rights era, black and brown parents boycotted
public schools that discriminated to undermine their funding, created their
own freedom schools that provided lessons in black and brown history,
and marched against the old Jim Crow laws. Parents who
want their children receive an honest accounting of the nation's
past will do well to learn from these predecessors and
(44:02):
to disrupt the meetings of right wing school boards as
loudly and enthusiastically as the parents who were conned into
a frenzy about the phantom dangers of CRT. This is
Michael Phillips.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
And this is Stephen Monicelli.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Thanks to Betsy Freoff for reading passages from textbooks, and
to Dan Glass for reading quotes from the founding fathers.
Of course, thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
It could happen. Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for it could happen here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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