Watch all the reruns of Gunsmoke you can find and you’ll never know that by the 1850s one out of ten cowboys was black. When I taught elementary school a few decades back, I had to use a lot of suplimental materials because the beige progress depicted in the standard text sickened me. (A black parent filed a complaint about my being racist for having “Run Away to Freedom” available to my fifth graders. A fictionalized but historically accurate blending of several slave narratives, its realism extended to including the n-word.) There are a lot of very good alternative texts out there — and it’s a shame they’re still ‘alternative’. Donate a few to your school. Or better yet, directly to a teacher you know will use them. Educate.