Mississippi school under fire for slave letter writing assignment

A Mississippi middle school is taking heat over a “slave letter writing” assignment that asked a group of mostly white students to “discuss the journey to America” or “tell about the family you live with.”
The assignment at Purvis Middle School also gave students the option to write about “how you pass your time when you aren’t working.
The school and the Lamar County School District did not respond to requests for.
Middle school Principal Frank Bunnell acknowledged the assignment was part of an eighth grade history lesson and apologized for “something like this happening under my watch.
But he said the outrage took the assignment out of context.
“A person could read just the assignment and draw a very unrealistic view of the true tragedies that occurred,” Bunnell wrote. “That was not intended.
“However, the intent does not excuse anything,” he added. There is no excuse to downplay a practice that (even after abolished) spurs unjust laws, unfair economic practices, inhumane treatment, and suppression of people.
While about half of Mississippi’s public school population is black, the student body at the Purvis Middle School is approximately 80 percent white.