VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — When Conor Collins teaches his Advanced Placement U.S. History class, he asks students to think about some of the challenges Black people could have faced during Reconstruction after American enslavement was abolished.
He talks about when Black people could participate in the American political sphere for the first time. But he also talks about the backlash in the Southern states through the formation of the Klu Klux Klan and exploitative legislation such as the Black Codes.
Could that be considered a divisive concept, and thus something that could run afoul of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order that seeks to prevent it? Collins said he doesn’t know.
