The Wisconsin Senate has passed legislation that would require schools to teach about the Holocaust and other genocides.
Milwaukee Democrat Lena Taylor proposed an amendment that would have added the African slave trade to the bill.
“Two million Black people are estimated to have died. Ten to fourteen million were forcibly transported,” Taylor said.
Taylor’s effort failed, on a day Senate Republicans also refused to consider a Black History Month resolution, but did approve one honoring the late Rush Limbaugh. Under the bill, schools would have to instruct on the Holocaust and other genocides at least once in grades 5-8 and once in grades 9-12.
“It is funded by a foundation specifically to fund a model academic curriculum, for this particular issues and all other genocides,” said the bill’s author, River Hills Republican Alberta Darling. “So there is room to talk about, and it should spark the conversation about what’s happening in our world today. Because that’s the point of studying the Holocaust. What happened, and why it should never happen again.”