McGraw-Hill rewrites part of textbook to clarify passage about plantation workers

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Publisher McGraw-Hill is rewriting part of a textbook after complaints it white-washed the reason African slaves were brought to America.

Texas mother Roni Dean-Burren took to Facebook to vent her frustration over part of her son's "World Geography" textbook. One passage said that The Atlantic slave trade brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on plantations.

"There is no mention of Africans working as slaves or being slaves," Dean-Burren said. "It just says we were workers."

Dean-Burren's Facebook post has been viewed more than a million times.

McGraw-Hill responded on Facebook, saying, "We believe we can do better. To communicate these facts more clearly, we will update this caption to describe the arrival of African slaves in the U.S. as a forced migration and emphasize that their work was done as slave labor."

The edit will appear in the online version of the book immediately, and will be included in the book's next printing.