The Stream

Video game gets US students to role play as escaping slave

Educational tool met with backlash for simulating experience of slavery.

Teachers and Twitter users are slamming an educational video game that places students in the shoes of a US slave before the country’s Civil War. In the role-playing game Mission US: Flight to Freedom, students assume the character of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave on a Kentucky plantation. Players make choices for Lucy as they attempt to navigate her escape from slavery.