Hello Tayari, don't know how many comments you'll get on this one.  It was so profound, I can only pause in silence and say, yes.  Thank you.

Hey Rebekah.  I read all the comments first and that's what I saw.  Perhaps it's what I read between the lines and perhaps I'm more incensed about education in general because I currently have African American children attending school, and when I...

Hello Sharon, I agree.  I teach my daughter everything I can think of and she is surrounded by books.  Even though Roots is fiction my daughter loved reading it in grade school and it was a gateway to an addiction for reading lots of real history...

Hi Sussan.  Respectfully, no.  I am saying that most of the indignation expressed in the numerous comments is hypocritical dribble drabble at best.  I am saying that all textbooks in our children's classrooms are filled with omissions, alterations...

Sorry, Hemings was spelled wrong.

Tweaking Twain is really very appropriate.  My daughter is in high school and studying the first American presidents.  In the section on Thomas Jefferson it mentions nothing about the 187 slaves he owned or raping (yes, I mean rape) Sally Hemmings,...

The Color Purple by Alice Walker Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Daughters by Paule Marshall Push by Sapphire The Street by Ann Petry for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange  

After reading your blog I feel compelled to respond, but I don't have the time to go to the depths your story is worthy of.  Let me just say I'm glad you made it out, education, reading, awareness is the life line.