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SECOND REGULAR SESSION
SENATE BILL NO. 967
103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY
INTRODUCED BY SENATOR MOSLEY .
3808S.01I KRISTINA MARTIN, Secretary
AN ACT
To amend chapter 161, RSMo, by adding thereto one new section relating to black history
education in public schools.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as follows:
Section A. Chapter 161, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto 1
one new section, to be known as section 161.710, to read as 2
follows:3
161.710. 1. This section shall be known and may be 1
cited as the "Black History Education and Awareness 2
Commission Act". 3
2. There is hereby created a permanent state 4
commission known as the "Black History Education and 5
Awareness Commission". The commission shall be housed in 6
the department of elementary and secondary education and 7
shall promote implementation of education and awareness 8
programs that increase students' understanding of the 9
history, experiences, and achievements of black people in 10
this state and across the country, in accordance with the 11
instructional topics outlined in subsection 6 of this 12
section. 13
3. The commission shall be composed of the following 14
thirteen members: 15
(1) The commissioner of elementary and secondary 16
education; 17
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(2) The commissioner of higher education; 18
(3) The president of Harris-Stowe State University; 19
(4) The superintendent of any school district where at 20
least fifty percent of the students enrolled in such 21
district are black, as confirmed by demographic data 22
provided to the department of elementary and secondary 23
education, to be appointed by the governor with the advice 24
and consent of the senate, and to serve a term of three 25
years; and 26
(5) Nine members of the public, representative of 27
civil rights groups, racial justice organizations, and black 28
professional organizations in Missouri, including, but not 29
limited to, the National Association for the Advancement of 30
Colored People, to be appointed by the governor with the 31
advice and consent of the senate, and to serve terms of 32
three years each, except that of the initial appointments, 33
three members shall be appointed for a term of three years, 34
three members shall be appointed for a term of two years, 35
and three members shall be appointed for a term of one year. 36
4. The black history education and awareness 37
commission may receive such funds as are appropriated by the 38
general assembly or contributed by private sources. The 39
commission may sponsor programs or publications to educate 40
the public about black history. The commission may employ 41
an executive director and such other persons as are 42
necessary to carry out its functions. 43
5. To educate students about the history, experiences, 44
and achievements of black people in this state and across 45
the country, and to inspire in students a sense of 46
responsibility to recognize and uphold human value and to 47
prevent bigotry, the first full week in February shall be 48
designated as "Black History Week". 49
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6. The black history week curriculum described in this 50
subsection shall be taught during a week as determined by 51
each school district beginning in the 2029-2030 school year 52
and in each subsequent school year, and shall include age- 53
appropriate instruction to students not lower than the sixth 54
grade. Such instruction shall include, but not be limited 55
to, the following topics: 56
(1) A detailed history of Africa, including, but not 57
limited to, the birth of humanity in Africa, initial 58
migrations of Africans out of Africa and into all continents 59
and islands of the Earth, the development of black African 60
civilizations, including, but not limited to, Egypt, Nubia, 61
Kush, Ethiopia, Mali, Ghana, Songhay, Benin, Kanem-Bornu, 62
and Great Zimbabwe; the effects of slavery and colonialism 63
upon African societies; African independence movements; and 64
modern-day Africa; 65
(2) Pre-Columbian contact between the indigenous 66
Native Americans and Africans, including contact, 67
visitation, interaction, and trade between Native Americans 68
with Egypt and Mali, as well as settlements of Egyptians and 69
Malians in both North and South America; 70
(3) The hypocrisy of the phrase "all men are created 71
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 72
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and 73
the Pursuit of Happiness" in the Declaration of 74
Independence, given the enslavement of millions of human 75
beings in the United States; 76
(4) Slavery provisions in the United States 77
Constitution; 78
(5) The distinction between lifetime chattel slavery 79
instituted in the Americas and old-world slavery; 80
(6) The economics of slavery; 81
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(7) The following topics related to slavery in the 82
United States: 83
(a) Slave breeding; 84
(b) Buck breaking; 85
(c) The rape of slaves; 86
(d) The mutilation of slaves; 87
(e) The castration of slaves; 88
(f) The murder of slaves; 89
(g) The starvation of slaves; 90
(h) The poor clothing of slaves; 91
(i) Destroying slave families through the selling of 92
single members of slave families away from the family; 93
(j) Forcing slaves to work from sunup to sundown; 94
(k) The cruel and unusual punishment of slaves; 95
(l) The whipping of slaves; 96
(m) The shackling of slaves; 97
(n) A list of Presidents of the United States who 98
owned slaves, to wit, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, 99
James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van 100
Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, 101
Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses S. Grant; 102
(o) Slave revolts; 103
(p) The burning and branding of slaves; 104
(q) The Fugitive Slave Act; 105
(r) The Underground Railroad; 106
(s) Prohibitions against teaching slaves how to read 107
and write; and 108
(t) Laws providing that conversion to Christianity did 109
not emancipate a slave; 110
(8) The participation of blacks in the Revolutionary 111
War and broken promises of freedom if they fought on the 112
side of the colonies; 113
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(9) The participation of blacks in the Civil War; 114
(10) That as many as fifty million Africans lost their 115
lives during the four-hundred-year slave trade; 116
(11) The fact that the Emancipation Proclamation did 117
not free any slaves when issued by President Abraham Lincoln 118
due to the fact that Lincoln did not apply it to the four 119
slave states that did not secede from the Union, 120
specifically Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky, nor 121
to the three slave states that seceded but were under Union 122
control at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, 123
specifically Louisiana, Virginia, and Tennessee, and that 124
the Emancipation Proclamation could not be enforced in the 125
remaining eight slave states that made up the Confederacy 126
since such states were under the control of the Confederacy; 127
(12) That over one million Africans remained enslaved 128
in the United States on June 19, 1865, "Juneteenth", since 129
the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to all slaves in 130
the United States; 131
(13) That the emancipation of all slaves in the United 132
States occurred on December 6, 1865, the date the Thirteenth 133
Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified 134
abolishing slavery in the United States; 135
(14) That the Thirteenth Amendment allowed one to be 136
enslaved for conviction of crime, which led to the former 137
Confederate slave states' passage of the "Black Codes", 138
which allowed for conviction of black people for trumped-up 139
crimes such as loitering and vagrancy, the imprisonment of 140
black people for such crimes, and the government leasing of 141
those black people to work, without pay, like slaves to 142
white-owned businesses, farmers, and manufacturers; 143
(15) The race massacres throughout the United States 144
following the Civil War, and particularly the bombing and 145
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destruction of the black owned and occupied Rosewood 146
business and residential district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and 147
East St. Louis, Illinois; 148
(16) The violent overthrow of elected black 149
governmental officials of Wilmington, North Carolina, by a 150
white seditionist mob with no response by the state or 151
federal governments; 152
(17) Black reconstruction of the South; 153
(18) The compromise ending reconstruction; 154
(19) Buffalo Soldiers; 155
(20) The participation of blacks in the Spanish- 156
American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and 157
the Vietnam War; 158
(21) Discrimination against black veterans; 159
(22) Discrimination against black West Point cadets; 160
(23) Discrimination against black soldiers and attacks 161
against black soldiers coming home from wars; 162
(24) The forced retirement of the highest-ranking 163
black Army officer, Colonel Charles Young, in order to avoid 164
promoting him as the first black Brigadier General solely 165
because he was black; 166
(25) Black inventions and inability of black inventors 167
to get loans or investments to develop their inventions; 168
(26) President Woodrow Wilson's aid to the revival of 169
the Ku Klux Klan and Wilson's ordering segregation of 170
governmental facilities and employees during his term of 171
office between 1913 and 1921; 172
(27) Laws mandating discrimination and segregation on 173
the basis of race; 174
(28) The real estate practices of redlining and 175
restrictive covenants; 176
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(29) Prohibitions against black athletes in 177
professional and amateur sports; 178
(30) Laws prohibiting interracial marriages; 179
(31) President Harry Truman's order to integrate the 180
military; 181
(32) The Voting Rights Act, Public Accommodations Act, 182
Fair Housing Act, Hate Crimes Act, and Equal Employment 183
Opportunity Act; 184
(33) The following Supreme Court cases: Dred Scott v. 185
Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education of 186
Topeka, Shelley v. Kraemer, and Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. 187
Canada; 188
(34) Significant African Americans in history; 189
(35) President Dwight Eisenhower's order for American 190
troops to protect black students integrating public schools; 191
(36) The civil rights movement; 192
(37) The counter intelligence program, "COINTELPRO", 193
the Federal Bureau of Investigation's conspiracy against 194
black civil rights leaders and groups; 195
(38) The freedom riders; 196
(39) The lynching of over four thousand black people 197
in America between 1877 and 1950; 198
(40) The Black Lives Matter movement, and the police 199
murders of unarmed black people; 200
(41) The Tuskegee experiment on black men by failing 201
to treat black men with syphilis to determine the effects of 202
untreated syphilis upon human beings; 203
(42) Painful and crippling gynecological experiments 204
on black women; 205
(43) Historically black colleges and universities; and 206
(44) Such other African American history as shall 207
fully detail and tell the history or story of Africans in 208
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Africa, both before and after the European military invasion 209
and colonization of Africa and the enslavement of Africans, 210
including the European invaders and colonizers' violent 211
dispossession of Africans from their homelands, and of gold, 212
diamonds, and other minerals and natural resources; the 213
Europeans' deprivation of Africans of their human rights 214
both in the United States and in Africa; the African lives 215
and bodies lost as a result of the European invasion and 216
colonization of the Americas and Africa; and African 217
Americans' history in the United States. 218
7. (1) The department of elementary and secondary 219
education shall develop a curriculum framework of 220
instruction for studying black history based on the 221
instructional topics specified in subsection 6 of this 222
section. The department shall make such curriculum 223
framework available to up to twenty-five school districts or 224
schools within a school district, with at least one school 225
district or school located within each of the nine regional 226
professional development centers recognized by the 227
department, as part of a pilot program beginning in the 2027- 228
2028 school year. 229
(2) Each school district or school participating in 230
the pilot program shall adopt the curriculum framework 231
provided by the department under subdivision (1) of this 232
subsection in the 2027-2028 school year. Each school 233
district or school shall determine the minimum amount of 234
instruction time that qualifies as a unit of instruction 235
satisfying the requirements of this subsection. 236
(3) Each participating school district or school shall 237
provide a plan of professional development for teachers to 238
ensure such teachers are adequately prepared to provide the 239
instruction required under this subsection. 240
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(4) The department of elementary and secondary 241
education shall provide for a program evaluation regarding 242
the success and impact of the pilot program upon completion 243
of the first year of the pilot program. The department 244
shall report the results of such evaluation to the general 245
assembly. 246
(5) The department shall make the curriculum framework 247
available to all school districts beginning in the 2028-2029 248
school year. All school districts shall participate in 249
black history week by the 2029-2030 school year. 250
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