Republican school bill mocked for claim Frederick Douglass debated Lincoln
by Martin Pengelly in New York from US news | The Guardian on (#5V155)
Virginia bill banning teaching of divisive concepts' confused black civil rights campaigner with white senator Stephen Douglas
A Republican bill to ban the teaching of divisive concepts" in schools in Virginia ran into ridicule when among historical events deemed suitable for study, it described a nonexistent debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Lincoln did engage in a series of historic debates hinged on the issue of slavery, in the Illinois Senate campaign of 1858. But he did so against Stephen Douglas, a senator who had ties to slavery - not against Frederick Douglass, the great campaigner for the abolition of slavery who was once enslaved himself.
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