Next April will mark the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, and unfortunately, the Commonwealth of Virginia is actively working to promote a myth about that war: that slavery was not a major cause of the war, and that thousands of African American slaves fought for the Confederacy to promote and protect “homes and livelihood”! 🙁
First, Governor Robert McDonnell introduced Confederate History Month last April without mentioning the role of slavery in the Civil War.
Now it has been discovered that a 4th grade textbook in Virginia public schools includes a statement that says black Confederate soldiers in the thousands fought for the South in the Civil War, including two battalions under the leadership of General Stonewall Jackson!
These statements are totally false, and were based on an internet search which utilized assertions by a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which has spread that rumor which has no basis in fact!
The Virginia Education Department did a poor job of vetting this textbook, and the fact that in the year 2010 we are having distorted history being promoted by the Governor and by the Education Department of the state of Virginia is indeed, very troubling, and should be condemned!
It is alarming that the South is continuing to promote a view long repudiated, and that what Southern Democrats used to do, uphold racism and discrimination, is now being promoted by Southern Republicans–a far cry from the honorable Republican party of Abraham Lincoln which upheld racial equality, freed the slaves, and promoted black citizenship and voting rights at the birth of the GOP!