NBC 5 Investigates has received video of African American students at a South Side high school performing a re-enactment of a slave auction.
Some teachers are speaking out, saying it caused harm to students, teachers and parents alike – and Chicago Public Schools has failed to address it.
The performance was part of a Black History Month celebration at Carver Military Academy on the Far South Side back in February 2025. Teachers said they brought their complaints to the school’s principal and CPS administrators, but they fell on deaf ears.
So, more than a year later, they came to NBC 5 Investigates – and showed us the stunning video captured by a student.
The play was called “Journey Back to America,” depicting slavery and the African American experience. But one scene in the play depicts students taking part in a mock slave auction – with students in the audience bidding.
“The students were divvied up and Hispanic, Latino students were utilized as slave auctioneers and purchasers and Black students were utilized…slaves and so that seemed intentional that the Latino students were the auctioneers and the Black students were slaves,” said a longtime Carver teacher who witnessed the performance and brought a complaint to the principal and CPS administrators.
The teacher has asked to remain anonymous.
He said he and his colleagues looked on in horror.
“Several teachers, including myself, several parents left,” the teacher said. “We walked out of the auditorium because we couldn’t believe what was happening.”
A CPS spokesperson said the script was written by a faculty member. The teacher provided us a purported copy of the script. One of the lines has the auctioneer stating:
“I aim to bet me a fine specimen today, that can work the field and that I can breed with my women folk,” before opening up the bidding.
We showed the video to professor Alvin Tillery, director of the Center for Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University. He said he can’t find a plausible educational reason to subject students, faculty and parents to a reenacted slave auction.
“I was shocked, but not surprised,” Tillery said. “We do not need to put children in the position of reenacting these cruelties and also reenacting, you know, sub-human narratives, right, of their own identities. It’s very, very problematic.”
Tillery said there are more appropriate ways to teach this history – reading the works of slaves and slave owners, visiting museums and watching acclaimed movies like “Roots.”
But he said educators should be careful given how many other states are attempting to minimize the teaching of this chapter of American history.
“And so I suspect that this teacher may have felt like there’s an obligation to teach about these subjects, but you’ve really got to do it in a way that protects the sensitivities of these young people,” he said.
The anonymous Carver teacher told NBC 5 Investigates the response from CPS was equally disturbing.
“There was never any acknowledgement that people were hurt by it,” the teacher said. “Only justification, only reassurance that we were interpreting it the wrong way.”
The teacher said CPS’ Office of Equity agreed to mediate when the Chicago Teachers Union got involved and brought it to their attention. But CPS’ only response was to issue the school a standard memo entitled “school guidance for culturally responsive celebrations, assemblies, and performances” that did not directly address the incident in question.
On late Friday evening, a CPS spokesperson issued the following statement:
“District and Network leadership became aware in February 2026 of concerns related to a February 2025 Black History Month production at a high school. While CPS cannot comment on personnel matters or any related actions, activities of this nature are wholly inconsistent with the expectations and values of this administration.”
