E D U C AT I O N
Teaching History the Books Forgot
USING TIKTOK, CHRIS DIER IS REACHING AN AUDIENCE HUNGRY TO LEARN LESSER-KNOWN ASPECTS OF LOCAL HISTORY. By Alexandra Kennon Photo courtesy of Chris Dier
aback that aside from the rare footnote, this deadly event appeared to have been entirely left out of history books. “Once I sort of started to pull off the veil of this history, I really never looked back,” he said. He wasted no time in presenting his findings to his students. He wanted to know if they and their parents had ever heard about these events—particularly because, as he discovered through his research, many of his students shared last names with both perpetrators and victims of the massacre. Not only was the story close to home in that regard, but the 1868 killings took place over a broad section of land—including that upon which Dier grew up, and where St. Bernard Middle School stands today. “It became one of those things where I wanted to get it into the classroom as soon as possible,” Dier explained.
The reactions from his students were mixed—some were unsurprised to learn that something of that nature occurred so close by, while others were completely shocked. The commonality was that, in part because of the proximity, they were eager to learn more. “It sort of opens up that natural curiosity that we all have, and really gets them invested,” Dier said. “So, it also gave us a lot of fodder for conversations, you know, students can actually engage in history that is their history and not history from a faraway place or anything, but history that they can take ownership of.” Since then, Dier has written and published the first book documenting the ordeal: The 1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre: Blood in the Cane Fields (The History Press, 2017). While researching the book, he learned that the St. Bernard Massacre was far from being a singular event—in the years following the Civil War, similar violent episodes against Black individuals took place across Louisiana. Dier notes that while he remained ignorant of this bloody swath of history until adulthood, the majority of Black Louisianians find it unsurprising.
Garnering a Global Following
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hen teaching eighth grade at St. Bernard Middle School in 2013, Chris Dier was researching episodes in local history that would be relevant to his students. He knew from his graduate studies in education at the University of New Orleans that the best way to increase class engagement is with topics from close to home, after all. His search led him to John C. Rodrigue’s Reconstruction in the Cane Fields: From Slavery to Free Labor in Louisiana’s Sugar Parishes, 1862–1880 (LSU Press, 2001), wherein a vague footnote piqued his curiosity; it mentioned “disturbances” in St. Bernard Parish in 1868. Dier—an avid
reader of historical texts who was raised by a history teacher mother, majored in history at East Texas Baptist University, and now taught history himself—had never heard of these “disturbances,” which had apparently taken place in the very parish in which he had grown up and now taught in. Dier began poring over records—some digitized by Harvard University and some via the Congressional Record Archive—to learn more about the episodes in question. In doing so, he discovered that the 1868 St. Bernard event referenced by the footnote amounted to much more than “disturbances.” In fact, he had stumbled upon one of the deadliest massacres in the history of Louisiana.
The 1868 St. Bernard Massacre Following the Civil War, in the days leading up to the presidential election of 1868, white Democratic voters in Louisiana and other Southern states feared losing their majority as newly-emancipated Black men joined the voting rolls. The stakes of the election were particularly high: a win for Democratic candidate Horatio Seymour would return Louisiana to home rule, spelling an end to local enforcement of Reconstruction-era measures to preserve the rights of newly enfranchised African Americans in the South by federal troops. On the other hand, a victory for the Republican candidate and former Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant would mean that local en66
forcement of Reconstruction era policies would continue—a prospect dreaded by many landowners in St. Bernard. In an effort to secure a Seymour victory, in late October 1868 groups armed and mobilized to silence the freedmen and their newly-obtained voting rights. Some Black men were forced from their homes and murdered. Others fled to the sugarcane fields, where some hid for multiple days. Reports of freedmen killed range from thirty-five to well over one hundred, while two white people were killed in the bloodshed (one of whom died while attempting to assist victims). Dier was surprised to have never heard of these historical atrocities, and taken
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Years later, in March of 2020, Dier was teaching history at Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans. Like other teachers across the globe, he was challenged to adapt his educational methods to the virtual sphere. At the urging of his students, Dier began utilizing a less-conventional method for sharing the largely-unknown history they were discussing in class: TikTok, the wildly-popular social media platform for creating and sharing shortform videos. He had been creating video content for his students already, but was initially reluctant to enter the entertainment-heavy, largely-Gen-Z space. “I said, ‘Absolutely, that’s not what we’re doing.’ And then I downloaded the app,” Dier said. The rest, as they say, is history. As he explored the seemingly-infinite network of videos, particularly those posted by other history teachers, he found himself thinking, “Wow, this is actually a pretty cool way to deliver content.” He began making one-minute videos about historical episodes not covered by the textbooks he teaches from. “Because that means that teachers might not have the resources to access it, and thus students might not have access to it,” Dier explained. “So, I think that appealed to many people, to hear about history that isn’t really taught as much.” That Dier’s TikTok presence appealed to “many people” might be an understatement: “I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging or anything, but it is global now,” Dier said. In February 2022, Dier’s account has 113.4 thousand followers, and over 1.3 million “likes”. He gets messages from viewers in China, Dubai,
Latin America, and beyond—a particularly large percentage of his followers are Chilean. “I don’t know, I did a few videos on Chilean history,” Dier explained, still marveling. “But yeah, it’s remarkable.” Though significant social media capital is nothing to scoff at these days, Dier’s scope of recognition has extended into more concrete, official realms as well. He was invited to the White House after being named the 2020 Louisiana Teacher of the Year, chosen as a finalist for the 2020 National Teacher of the Year, and named the winner of the National Education Association’s 2021 Human and Civil Rights Award. While he admits that having his work validated is a good feeling, “I also didn’t become a teacher for that type of validation or for the accolades,” he said. “To receive them is remarkable. But again, it wasn’t my main goal, it was a product of the work.” President of the Louisiana Association of Educators Dr. Tia Mills, on whose board Dier currently sits, applauded Dier’s willingness to meet students on their level by embracing the technology of their generation. “I think that the way that he is introducing [more difficult historical content] is very innovative. You know, with the changing of times comes the changing of thinking [about] the ways of approaching education, in different perspectives,” said Mills. “So, you have to be able to reach our children in various ways, because we have different types of learners.” Now entering his third year on TikTok, Dier has produced an entire video series that addresses the largely untaught and undiscussed Reconstruction-Era massacres that took place in Louisiana
