Using Primary Sources in United States History Textbooks to Create Social Justice Connections from Past to Present

Abstract

Primary sources are tools that can be used in education to provide rich opportunities for helping bring history to life for students. They aid in fostering historical thinking allowing students to understand the present and its linkages to, or legacies from, the past. Primary sources are used in United States history textbooks, but my research has found they are more robustly used in instances where books are teaching historical periods that can be deemed exceptional — as when America declared its independence — and more sparingly when teaching historical periods that examine minority experiences — such as the slave trade, the cause of the South’s secession from the Union and the outbreak of the Civil War, or Reconstruction. An increase in the scope and quality of primary sources ins U.S. high school history textbooks concerning African American experiences could allow for students to engage in a higher level of historical thinking preparing them to create linkages from past to present and better understand today’s social justice issues, namely, systemic racism.