I am a white male who went to elementary school through the 1960s

[Proud to be Woke]

49. I think it was not an accident that this info was left out of curriculums

Like BlueKentuckyGirl, I learned nothing about the Japanese American internment camps in public school in the 1960s- early 70s and I lived two states over from her. I learned about this for the first time in college. Also, I learned nothing during my entire public school experience about the kingdoms of Africa south of the Sahara during the 1200s-1500s or anytime prior to the days of colonization by Europeans. Never knew that one of the kingdoms of Sudan conquered and ruled Egypt for almost 100 years and then lost control of it. Didn't even know there were pyramids, mummies, monuments in Sudan. Never heard of Great Zimbabwe. I didn't even know that there had been Christianity in Ethiopia for well over 1000 years. It's not that the info was not available. It simply was not being taught.

In a drug store clearance pile my dad found a copy of the very textbook, "Exploring the Old World" that I had studied from in 6th grade, but it was the teacher's edition and it was the updated 1974 edition. It was updated to include a few paragraphs about the kingdoms of Ghana, the Ife culture and some of the others and of the library at Timbuctu and other cultural centers. So, someone was at least doing something by then to rectify matters.