This week, the Florida Board of Education approved new Black history standards that will now include instruction on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book (D-Davie) – ‘These new African-American history standards approved by the Board of Education unacceptably skew the darkest points of the history of our nation and state — forcing schools to misinform students about horrific realities of slavery. What’s next? Suggesting some Jews benefitted from the Holocaust by learning perseverance from their trauma? We cannot spin these atrocities and must instead name them for what they are: black spots in history which we must learn from and must never repeat.
This implementation of the misguided so-called ‘Stop WOKE Act’ runs at odds with actual history. I was proud to stand with my colleagues in the Black Caucus to sponsor a bill ensuring the truth about the Ocoee massacre is taught in Florida schools — but this new rule denies those victims of segregation and racism in the Jim Crow South any justice or recognition. We have unacceptably taken several steps back in history.’
Senator Geraldine Thompson (D-Orlando) offered her own testimony during the Board of Education’s public comment at the meeting, saying, “If I were still a professor…I would give this a grade of ‘I’ for ‘Incomplete’. It recognizes that we have made an effort, we have taken a step, however, this history needs to be comprehensive, it needs to be authentic, and it needs additional work.
In 2020 the Legislature passed a bill championed by former Senator Randolph Bracy, Leader Book and Senator Geraldine Thompson to begin the process to add the Ocoee Election Day massacre to Florida’s K-12 education curriculum. On the impact of these new standards to the teaching of the Ocoee Massacre, Thompson said, “When you look at the history currently it suggests that the [Ocoee] massacre was sparked by violence from African Americans. That’s blaming the victim, when in fact it was other individuals who came into the Black Community and killed individuals, and burned homes, schools, lodges, etc. So we want to tell the whole story.”
After releasing a statement on the Florida Department of Education “whitewashing African American history and chipping away at LGBTQ+ youth safety in schools”, Senator Shevrin Jones (D-Miami Gardens) was featured on MSNBC’s Katy Tur Reports, saying, “The Florida Department of Education has set our state back years with the passage of these new education guidelines…Slavery was NOT a benefit to the enslaved. If we want to teach accurate African-American studies, don’t start our history at slavery. Talk about the land we were taken from – where we were kings and queens and owned land. I was a teacher for nearly a decade and I can tell you, teachers are not indoctrinating students. Teachers are teaching what the truth is, which we should be teaching children when they come into the classroom. That’s not ‘woke-ism’. That’s called history and that’s called facts.”
Other responses by members of the Senate Democratic Caucus include an appearance by Senator Rosalind Osgood (D-Tamarac) on CBS News Miami to share her thoughts on what Black history education in Florida should include and Senator Bobby Powell (D-West Palm Beach) joining elected officials in a town hall this weekend in Haverhill to discuss, in part, the new education standards.
