Some state lawmakers are pushing for Delaware to join a growing of number of states requiring more substantial Black history education in schools.
And when drafting her bill, State Rep. Sherry Dorsey Walker looked to the community it will affect most - public school students.
Delaware Public Media’s Roman Battaglia caught up with two students from the Delaware Black Student Coalition to get their thoughts on legislation - and their contribution to writing it.
On the House floor last month, some Republicans fought against the effort, calling it divisive and arguing it would further divide America along racial lines.
But members of the Delaware’s Black Student Coalition disagree. St. Georges Tech senior Tariah Hyland helped found the group this year.
“The division right now is being perpetrated through the curriculum, perpetrating ideas of white supremacy which is the division, which is the divide — and if anything is closing the divide and unifying us because what we’re learning is not okay,” she says.
Hyland says at her school, kids only learn about Black history in reference to slavery and civil rights, and don’t hear about changemakers, inventors or other aspects of Black culture and society.
