“A person could read just the assignment and draw a very unrealistic view of the true tragedies that occurred. That was not intended,” he wrote. “However, intent does not excuse anything. There is no excuse to downplay a practice that (even after abolished) spurs unjust laws, unfair economic practices, inhumane treatment, and suppression of a people.”

Jarrius Adams, the president of Young Democrats Mississippi, called the assignment inappropriate.  

“It is extremely tone-deaf and inappropriate to have middle schoolers put themselves in the shoes of slaves without proper context,” Adams said.

“It does not matter what the intention was, the impact is the only thing that matters,” Adams said. “If I were a parent of a student in the classroom, I would be pissed. There are proper ways to educate students about the history of this nation — this was not one of them.”

About 12% of the students at Purvis Middle School are Black, while 80 percent are white, according to The Daily Beast. However, more than 50% of the students in Mississippi public schools are Black.

The region is “Klan territory,” according to Jeremy Marquell Bridges, social media manager for Black Lives Matter Mississippi.

“I don’t know how a logical person teaches this,” Bridges said. “Like someone who went to school to teach children could think this exercise was helpful in any way. It’s not helpful, it’s hurtful.”

Another controversial assignment, which was given at a Texas charter school in 2018, asked students to identify the “positive” and negative aspects of slavery, as Blavity previously reported. 

In the same year, another Texas school asked to draw a picture depicting themselves as slaves.  

“There’s nothing about slavery that I would want any child, regardless of color, to have to relive,” Tonya Jennings, an outraged mother of a student at Four Points Middle School, said.

“It is completely out of place,” Jennings said, as Blavity previously reported. “To ask my child to put herself in a situation where she has to draw herself as a slave was an issue just, you know, all the way up the board.”