More than a decade ago, New Jersey was one of the first states in the country to make black history part of the core curriculum for students. Former assemblyman William Payne was the co-sponsor of the Amistad Bill which became law in 2002. However, the way the legislation has been been put into practice hasn’t worked out quite the way Payne had envisioned. He tells NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider the problem is that the state Department of Education continues to identify the Amistad legislation as black history rather than as part of American history.
Under the legislation, Payne says the Amistad curriculum is supposed to infuse the contributions of African-Americans into the teaching of American history from its inception in the colonial days.
“What happens unfortunately is people don’t seem to understand we’re not talking about having a single kind of silo on the side of American history and then we drag it out in the month of February,” according to Payne.
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The fact that black history is given special treatment in the shortest month of the year wasn’t lost on Payne even when he was a member of the Assembly. “When I was a legislator, I wanted to introduce legislation that says we need three or four more weeks in February because everyone wanted to talk about black folks,” he said jokingly.
Payne takes exception with how the American Revolution is presented in classrooms and the glaring omission of black soldiers.
“When you think about the Revolutionary War, you think about the Battle of Bunker Hill and [British] Major [John] Pitcairn who was killed there etc., but we have never been taught, I certainly wasn’t, that African-Americans were in that war,” said Payne. “And [in] that particular battle, Peter Salem, who was a black solider in a black brigade, was the one who fought and killed Major Pitcairn. We are never, ever taught about the roles of African-Americans played in the development of this country, never.”
When he looks back on his own classroom experience growing up in Belleville, he says standard reading books like Little Black Sambo typified the “racist kind of education” he was subjected to at the time.
“Little Black Sambo was the book that was used to depict the black family — the family lived in a jungle and the white families lived in beautiful tree-lined streets,” said Payne. “Never once were we taught African-Americans played a positive role in the Civil War. Over 21 men won the congressional Medal of Honor in the Civil War. People get the impression that blacks stood on the sidelines through all of this and that’s not true.”
According to Payne, the telling of American history that includes the active participation of African-Americans throughout the development of the country would foster a sea change in how African-American youth see themselves.
“There would be a certain amount of pride within that young African-American kid and then the white schoolmate would say, ‘hmm, we didn’t do it all ourselves,'” Payne said. “African-American youngsters would want to go to school and learn more about it. They’d want to know [about] the fact that the traffic light was invented by a black man, we’re never taught that; the fact that the blood plasma and the blood bank of America was developed by Dr. Drew, a black doctor; the fact that the first successful operation of the human heart was by a black doctor. These things are not taught.”
Payne says the education commissioner of the past several administrations have sent out information to all the school districts that the Amistad curriculum is the law of New Jersey. But Payne says he has received less than full support from the current administration.
“Commissioner Cerf is apparently very busy, doesn’t have time for this,” Payne said. “I might say this though, I’ve spoken directly to Chris Christie about it and he has said that he’s supportive of it. So I’m going to be reaching out to Gov. Christie to have him sit down with me and Commissioner Cerf to make sure that this is not something that’s an afterthought, it’s an integral part of our history.”