Digital ‘Slavery Simulation’ Game for Schools Draws Ire, Praise

In Mission US: Flight to Freedom, players inhabit the fictional character of Lucy King, a 14-year-old girl who is attempting to escape the Kentucky plantation where she and her family are enslaved. The free, Web-based game unfolds in a choose-your-own-adventure format, with students asked to make choices that affect the game’s trajectory, within the context of the historical realities of 1848.

“I don’t know that you can really channel the rape, murder, and mutilation of slavery into a game,” said Rafranz Davis, a K-12 instructional technology specialist and former high school teacher who has been leading an online and social-media campaign to get the game withdrawn from schools, pending further review.

“I’m not against gaming. I’m against the way this was done,” said Davis, who currently works in Texas’ 64,000-student Arlington Independent School District.

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