Hooray. Just when we cats were despairing that ignorance would indeed not only be deemed fashionable but also be allowed to run rampant in Virginia's schools, sanity appears to have prevailed.
At least, in Loudoun County. School officials there have pulled a wildly inaccurate textbook, Our Virginia, from their fourth-grade classrooms.
Why? Only because the book included a bald-faced lie: That thousands of African Americans fought as Confederate soldiers in the Civil War. Sorry, everyone, but there was no Southern equivalent of the 54th Massachusetts.
As fairly new residents of the Commonwealth, we cats are puzzled as to why Virginia can't seem to get the Civil War right. We are a purple state with a diverse population, but the folks in charge — currently Republicans, wouldn't you know — are throwbacks to another era. They want to look moderate, but in reality, they're trying to rewrite history to suit the descendants of former slaveholders, not former slaves.
We cats PURR in the direction of Loudoun County Schools, and urge the rest of the Old Dominion's school systems to follow suit. In the meantime, we're looking forward to all the 150th anniversary events here next year. Should be interesting!
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