Slaver Reddick's Article Analysis

Reddick’s article was written in 1934 yet some thirty-eight years later racial attitudes in American textbooks were still being challenged. In 1972, as part of the United States Commission on Civil Rights review of Textbooks, saw the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction sponsor a comprehensive bibliography of books that included blacks as central characters. The Wisconsin research group found that the standard of books concerning Blacks varied considerably. On a small plus point they did conclude that some children's books were "beautifully executed and mark the beginning of a move to both confirm the existence of Blacks and to record a full and accurate picture of their history and experience." However their findings stated others were "written from a narrow and distorted perspective." Their review of three hundred available books highlighted five specific unacceptable patterns in the portrayal of blacks.

• ‘Romanticism’ where the narratives camouflage actuality for example

The examination of textbooks and sources in the sixteen states he based his article on show that in many cases the status and progression of African-Americans from the shackles of slavery had been sanitised and was not a true reflection of reality. He argues many of the narratives portrayed the Negro freedman as “shiftless, sometimes vicious, and easily led into corruption”. Moreover he believed many of the textbooks defended the treatment that the South enacted on African-American slaves. Reddick’s article and the views of likeminded historians highlight the need to challenge inaccuracies, omissions, distortions and manipulations of factual history within textbooks. If Historians do not challenge these issues then such representations will be perceived as true accounts of "what has