There is a richly reported July 20, 2022 article in The 74 that is full of primary sources (including letters, ledgers, photos, and a DBQ lesson). It looks at how a law that Rhode Island students be taught Rhode Island’s “African Heritage History” is playing out since its passage last year. 

Here's the teaser from the email that alerted me:

'If you were to ask people to name a state involved in the business of slavery …
… Rhode Island probably would never come up,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Christy Clark-Pujara. But in fact, nearly two-thirds of all slave trading voyages that originated in North America — 945 trips between 1700 and 1850 — began in tiny Rhode Island. And the posh city of Newport, home to Gilded Age mansions and the International Tennis Hall of Fame, launched more of those journeys than any port on the continent. 

“The streets of Newport were paved with the duties paid on enslaved people,” the UW-Madison scholar tells The 74's Asher Lehrer-Small. “You have an entire economy that is wrapped up in the business of slavery.” Now, the state is requiring schools to teach that forgotten history, and the shift is making a big difference in how some Newport students view their hometown.

https://www.the74million.org/article/slave-money-paved-the-streets-now-this-posh-ri-city-strives-to-teach-its-past/

#Social Studies, #enslaved, #slavery, #Rhode Island, #legal, #requirement