Fellow seniors, I hope this doesn't start a firestorm but?

I'll ask anyway. Let's re-visit Huckleberry Finn and the changing of the text in an effort to make it more socially acceptable for teaching in school. I hate the 'N" word, too when it's said by anyone in any context - spoken word or in song - but did changing it to 'slave' change the meaning of the text? If a change was absolutely necessary, wouldn't the substitution of the word ***** been more accurate. The slang pronunciation of the word and the word slave are not interchangeable. All black people (even in the south) were not slaves. Changing it implies that they were.