by Ron Iannone
When I read and hear about parents today wanting to be more involved in their children’s education, it brings back memories of an article I wrote in December 1974 about the textbook controversy in Kanawha County.
Many of the issues today revolve around teaching critical race theory, mandates to close schools, in some cases for two years, because of COVID and the one mandate that is still upsetting parents — their children being told to wear masks in school.
In Texas and other states, teachers are limited in how they can discuss slavery, race and the Holocaust. In the case of the Holocaust, teachers are being told to share opposing views. The new Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, argued parents need more control in what their children learn in school. He used a commercial showing a parent upset at the use of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” She claimed scenes in the book caused her son to have nightmares.
In 1974, I spent several hours interviewing the major players involved in the Kanawha County textbook controversy. These included Ken Underwood, superintendent of schools; Alice Moore, self-educated school board member who wanted Christian and family values taught in schools; and Elmer A. Fike, the owner of a chemical plant in Nitro. He told me, “The liberals have had control of people’s minds for years, and now it’s time for conservative to have their minds.”
Like today, I found parents in Kanawha County wanted to be more involved in selecting textbooks. Educators were being challenged in their selection. The State of West Virginia wanted students to understand the multicultural nature of our country. With this in mind, Kanawha County selected textbooks that told the stories of African Americans through poetry and their dialect.
Alice Moore said she didn’t want teachers teaching “ghetto languages” or learning about “Black people’s race.” She wanted textbooks to teach about what it meant to be an American and a good Christian. Many parents supported her and soon began to boycott the schools. The John Birch Society, the KKK and neo-Nazis joined the boycott, and some groups even protested on the steps of the Capital in Charleston. Miners, bus drivers and truckers also went along with the boycott.
Close to 9,000 students were held out of school for a period of time.
As the boycott grew, so did the violence. Bombs were planted in schools and even set off in some cases. A fundamentalist minister was sentenced for threatening to bomb schools while also asking protesters to shoot at school buses. The superintendent of schools was beaten up after a school board meeting. Teachers and other administrators were also threatened and feared going to work.
This is similar to what is happening today throughout the United States at school board meetings, where parents are screaming and yelling about mask mandates and what is being taught in the curriculum. The tactics being used now began decades ago in Kanawha County.
In the article I wrote several years ago, I mentioned that many educators, like myself, have been calling for years for more parental involvement — but perhaps not the way we wanted parents to think. However, at least today we have their attention. We must begin to work with them, regardless of their perspectives.
In short, we must stop labeling parents as extreme right-wing, religious crazies, white supremacists and so on. We must listen with open minds and open hearts. We must also listen with understanding, kindness, humbleness and compassion!
Most importantly, as educators, we need to break the chains of our academic rhetoric and begin to see that parents might have fewer degrees but some are often wiser than us. And together, we may get closer to having an honest conversation with each other.
The historian Walter Isaacson said, “Not everything needs to be decided right away. We can begin by asking what type of world we want to leave for our children. Then we can feel our way together step by step, preferably hand in hand.”
Ron Iannone is a WVU professor emeritus in the College of Education and Human Services and the founder of West Virginia Public Theater.
