Only two percent of high school seniors in 2010 could answer a simple question about the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the farther away from the South — and the smaller the African-American population — the less attention paid to the civil rights movement. Sixteen states do not require instruction about the movement. In another 19, coverage is minimal.
As the nation prepared earlier this year to dedicate a monument to Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Poverty Law Center undertook a comprehensive review of the civil rights movement in state curricula. Read the findings of the review at splcenter.org
