Showerthought: I looked at a 1965 Alabama textbook next to a 2023 one, and the chapter on slavery went from 4 pages to half a page

Wyatt Jones · 2026-09-24T15:15:03.858158+00:00

I volunteer at a library book sale in Mobile every spring, and last month a retired teacher dropped off a box of old textbooks her mom had saved. One was a 1965 Alabama history book for 8th graders, and I sat down and compared it with a current one on the same shelf. The old one had 4 full pages on slavery, with names, dates, and quotes from people who lived it, and the new one had about half a page that mostly talked about states rights. Nothing was technically banned, which is the tricky part. Textbook boards in Texas and Florida pick what goes in these books for the whole country, and publishers water stuff down so it sells everywhere. Reading that 1965 chapter felt weird because it was the book that got torn apart in the 60s for being too soft, and now it looks like the brave one. Has anyone else compared old and new textbooks side by side? I want to know if this is just an Alabama thing or if other states look the same.

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Showerthought: I looked at a 1965 Alabama textbook next to a 2023 one, and the chapter on slavery went from 4 pages to half a page | Banned Book Breakdown - Rigidtalk