Shanna Miles

Because Harris won’t ban Black history

It can be hard to know what to do when change comes at you day after day, year after year, and that change is not good. In 2024, the teaching of AP African American Studies was challenged and banned in Georgia and South Carolina. The ban was successfully overturned in Georgia, but it still remains in South Carolina as a direct result of anti-critical race theory laws that swept the nation in recent years. A smear campaign against the college course was launched by staunch conservatives and Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters. Seemingly, these supporters felt that America was greater when Black people were silent about their pain, their joys, their very existence. Seeing Kamala Harris speak out against these efforts at the American Federation of Teachers filled me with hope.

I write books for children. My middle grade novel The Fall of the House of Tatterly is a fantasy set in Charleston, South Carolina. In the Southern Gothic tradition, there are, of course, ghosts with frightening pasts. I’m from South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union at the beginning of the Civil War. That soil is filled with stories of long hot summers and Grandma’s pecan pie, but there are also stories of toil and slavery, and when I was dreaming of monsters, the worst one to come to mind was a slave catcher. In my book, the big bad is an undead slave catcher turned Confederate soldier. With new laws and regulations meant to hide the history of the Confederacy, my book could very well be challenged in schools. I stand with Kamala. I am voting for Kamala, because America needs someone to stand for the truth and stories that speak to the fears and hopes of children that look like me.

Shanna Miles’s most recent Southern Gothic book for children is The Rise of Issa Igwe, which is set in her adopted home state of Georgia.