Oklahoma's Prescription for High School History

When I have some more time I'm going to comment on this. In the meantime, I have one question: did Patrick Henry actually say in his speech at St. John's Church "give me liberty or give me death speech"? I mean I love how they're trying to turn history into teaching fiction. The American Studies person in me recognizes that the fiction may have become part of history, but I'm not sure they do.

I love that they're assigning at least part of Grapes of Wrath, though I will say that other key pieces of Oklahoma's history such as the Tulsa race riot, are missing.  But I guess the latter is exactly the kind of stories of our past that the bill is aimed at.  

The image is St. John's Church in Richmond, where Henry delivered his address.

Now that I'm back home in lovely Chapel Hill, from an awesome conference at Washington and Lee that Margaret Hu and the editors of the Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, especially Rachel Kurzweil and Tunde Cadmus, put together, I want to talk a little bit more about that list of documents.

Let's start with this: the code of Justinian but no Brown v. Board of Education?  They could write a lot of recent US history out of Oklahoma documents -- I'd suggest something on the movement against lynching from the pages of either the Tulsa Star or the Oklahoma City Black Dispatch in the early 1920s.  If they're really interested in the rule of law, then those are great documents to study -- as well as something on the complete breakdown in the rule of law that was the Tulsa riot, such as an editorial from the Tulsa Star that depicted the lynchers as the lawbreakers.  Then maybe the grand jury report in the wake of the Tulsa riot; and for the lead into Brown, how about Fisher v. Oklahoma?

Actually, here's a thought for the AP exam writers: Turn this controversy into an examination question!  How about something on how Americans remember our history and why this might matter to contemporary politics?

Comments

[Michael Risch]

In 1817, Wirt reports that the speech was not transcribed, but that those present remember clearly those words, as they ended the speech. I'd post a link to the book, but that would put me in the spam filter.

I don't know if that's been debunked since, but I don't think it's fiction to use that account of the speech in a history class.

[Michael Risch]

Trying the link separately: http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/wirt/wirt.html
p. 123

[Orin Kerr]

If it's published by the Yale Law library, it must be true:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/patrick.asp

[Michael Risch]

OK, nevermind - I see the view that Wirt made it up. Still worthy of studying, but I get the point that the type of study changes...

[Al Brophy]

Sure thing, Michael -- it's worth studying for what it says about how Americans in the nineteenth century thought about their history. At some point we'll be using this list of documents for what it says about how some people in the early 21st century conceptualized history, too!