Sunday, November 10, 2019

N.J. Sending Teachers to Visit Trans-Atlantic Slave Sites to Teach Black History in Public Schools
by Melanie Burney
November 8, 2019

N.J. sending teachers to visit trans-Atlantic slave sites to teach black history in public schools
VERNON OGRODNEK / FOR THE INQUIRER

New Jersey public school teachers will get to travel to trans-Atlantic sites associated with the slave trade to learn how to better teach black history — not just in February but year-round — to comply with a decades-old state mandate.

The initiative was announced Friday as a new program under the state’s Amistad law, which requires all public schools to teach African American history. The mandate was established under a 2002 law signed by then-Gov. Jim McGreevey but has not been widely implemented.

Ed Richardson, New Jersey Education Association executive director, speaks alongside Jacqui Greadington, who proposed sending teachers to visit trans-Atlantic sites associated with the slave trade, during the NJEA convention in Atlantic City on Friday, Nov. 8.

It was the brainchild of Jacqui Greadington, a retired East Orange music teacher turned activist who wants to change how black history is taught. She got the idea after a visit to Ghana that she said "changed my life forever.”

“There are people who have no clue about the value of the African American story,” Greadington said.

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