By Glenn K. Pearson
As the new school year begins, it promises to be unlike any other in Florida history due to new standards for teaching African American history. Unanimously approved by the Florida Board of Education, the rules attempt to portray slavery as an apprenticeship. Middle schoolers are to be taught that enslaved people developed “skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” This is a bald-faced attempt to mask the many horrors of this inhumane, and immoral institution that included rape, torture, human trafficking, murder, forced labor and ripping families apart.
To justify that much criticized language, two members of the work group that developed the new standards released a joint statement defending their position
after what they say was months of work. William Allen and Frances Presley Rice, both Black conservatives, claim that it is “factual and well documented” that people who had been slaves gained skills during their enslavement that they could later use.
Of the 16 people listed in their statement as examples supporting their claim, many were not slaves, and most of those who had been slaves gained their business and personal skills after that slavery. Only two of them learned a skill while enslaved, and that skill wasn’t taught because they were a slave, but rather despite or incidental to it. (See article by Daily Kos contributing editor Frank Vyan Walton -
“Florida Board fails hilariously at proving “Slavery taught skills” “
– Posted July 22, 2023)
Their “factual and well documented” examples are so filled with errors that it would be comical if it were not so serious. I will highlight just two.
The very first name on the list is Ned Cobb. They said he was a blacksmith. He was in fact a tenant farmer and activist who was born in 1885, 20 years after the emancipation of slaves. Another name included in the list of individuals who obtained skills while enslaved is Betty Washington Lewis, the sister of the first President of the United States. She is identified as a shoemaker. Obviously, she was not a slave, she was not a shoemaker, and she was not African.
These so-called educators insult our intelligence by pushing an agenda that diminishes the real impact and damage of slavery, and then puts out such easily refutable examples of persons who supposedly benefited from skills learned while enslaved.
Governor Ron DeSantis has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that public school educators have tried to indoctrinate students with a liberal agenda. Teaching our children the truth about the horrors of slavery is not indoctrination, it’s honesty. Yet his administration recently approved materials from a conservative group that openly says what it is presenting is all about indoctrination and “changing minds.”
The Florida Department of Education has partnered with PragerU Kids. On the topic of slavery, a Prager animation depicts Christopher Columbus telling a couple of time-traveling 21 st century children that during his time, slavery was “no big deal.”
Besides, said cartoon Christopher, “being taken as a slave is better than being killed.”
There’s even a cartoon version of Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery and became a national leader of the abolitionist movement, who tells kids: “I’m certainly not OK with slavery, but the Founding Fathers made a compromise to achieve something great: the making of the United States.”
It is blatantly obvious that the DeSantis administration, along with his sycophant GOP state lawmakers have set in place laws and education standards designed to foist an ultra-conservative far-right program of indoctrination upon our youth.
This distortion of our history - our American history - cannot be tolerated. The Manatee County Democratic Black Caucus adds our voice to the collective expressions of outrage from Florida religious leaders, community organizers, civil rights activists, and parents throughout the state. We must stop this propaganda masquerading as African American history in Florida’s education system. Our children deserve to learn the truth.
Glenn K. Pearson is president of the Manatee County Democratic Black Caucus and vice chair of the Manatee County Democratic Party
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