If you are planning on teaching about the "first Thanksgiving" and "pilgrims," please remember to choose good culturally sensitive resources that share the real story of Thanksgiving and not the idealized and often false story.

Many traditional and older Thanksgiving resources are based on whitewashed versions of the known and documented story of the pilgrim's encounter with natives and their first "thanksgiving" meal which looked nothing like our celebration today and first occurred in March.

A better Thanksgiving story is the reason behind why Abraham Lincoln called for a national day of thanksgiving -- to heal the wounds which the Civil War had opened.

Still better yet are the Thanksgiving Festivals described in the Old Testament. Here's an article about several biblical Thanksgiving celebrations.

Links for the "real" story of Thanksgiving, its history, and native perspectives:

Here's a good overview of the real "first" thanksgiving story as best as historians can now reconstruct it, the Civil War origins of a national day of Thanksgiving, and the thanksgiving featuring the "legend" of the Pilgrims which took its place in the early 20th.

From Native American Educational site NativeCircle.com : http://www.nativecircle.com/fi...anksgiving-myth.html

From Time magazine, “The Thanksgiving Tale We Tell is a Harmful Lie”: https://time.com/5457183/thank...ve-american-holiday/

A current perspective on Thanksgiving from 4 different Native American voices from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...licated-holiday.html

Editor's Note: This important post has been updated and added to.