A learning activity book has been pulled from shelves at Target because it misidentified several Black historic figures. W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Carter G. Woodson. were labeled incorrectly in the book, which is titled Civil Rights Magnetic Learning Activity.
The inaccuracies in the book, which was published by Bendon Publishing, were pointed out by TikTok user @issatete. "Idk who needs to correct it but it needs to be pulled off the shelves nontheless," the TikTok creator captioned her video. "Any person could have missed the mistake but it just takes one person to point it out and ask for corrections."
In the video, she explained that she teaches history and believes the product needs to be pulled from shelves as soon as possible.
In the video, she pointed to an image that was labeled as Carter G. Woodson — but the image was actually depicting W.E.B. Du Bois, she said, showing an image of Du Bois alongside the picture that was labeled "Carter G. Woodson" in the activity book.
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"They got the name wrong," she said — and it's not the only one they got wrong, either. She then showed the image that was labeled as W.E.B. Du Bois but, of course, was not actually him.
It was actually an image of Booker T. Washington.
The image that was labeled as Booker T. Washington was actually Carter G. Woodson.
"I get it — mistakes happen," she said in the video. "But this needs to be corrected ASAP."
The TikTok creator uploaded a follow-up video on the evening of Wednesday, January 31, 2024, when Target had not yet responded to the video.
Though she said that Target and the publishing company had not responded yet, she thanked her followers for their responses.
She said she "appreciates" those who commented and held the corporations accountable — though she initially posted the video that pointed out the mistakes, she said "it's you guys who really took off with it" and helped it go viral.
On February 1, Target shared a statement with USA Today and other outlets, saying, "We will no longer be selling this product in stores or online. We’ve also ensured the product's publisher is aware of the errors."
Though Issa acknowledged that people make mistakes sometimes, she also felt that she had to say something. "I was not going to let that slide," Issa said in her follow-up video. "I was not going to let that slide for my 200 students and I was not going to let that slide for my two babies who I am responsible of teaching."
Many commented on her video thanking her for raising awareness of the issue and celebrating the fact that Target pulled the activity book from its shelves.
Commenting on the original video, people were shocked that no one noticed the mistake. "You're telling me not one person double checked these???" one person wrote.
