Accuracy matters

Task force members deliver ‘Teaching Our Own History’ curriculum to governor, DOE

By St. Clair Murraine
Outlook Staff Writer

The next move is up to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.    

Calling on the governor to respond to eight months of work on a Black history curriculum, faith leaders, educators and historians delivered copies of their work Tuesday afternoon.

Their first stop was at DeSantis’ office inside the Capitol before they took a copy to the Turlington Florida Education Center for Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz. 

They were accompanied by about 50 other individuals who participated in a two-day symposium that culminated after the deliveries. The symposium’s theme was fashioned off a task force, “Teaching Our Own History.”

The group rode to both stops by bus from the Bethel Family Life Center, where the symposium took place.

“It is important that we share with this governor and the commissioner of education an accurate curriculum that is authentic, accurate, truthful and correct,” said Rev. RB Holmes, pastor at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church. “I hope they will look at the curriculum. I hope that in a spirit of corporation that they will embrace the curriculum.”

Things didn’t go so smoothly when the group approached the receptionist at the governor’s office. They demanded that DeSantis or someone high in his administration take the black binder that carried the curriculum.

It took multiple requests from Holmes and others who crafted the curriculum to get the attention of Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas, deputy chief of staff in the governor’s office.

On the front line with Holmes were FAMU history professor Larry Rivers, Ph.D., Dana Thompson Dorsey, Ph.D., who is an associate professor at the University of South Florida, and Rev. Isaac L. Williams, vice president at large of the Florida General Baptist Convention. Each of them took turn explaining why the curriculum should be in each of the state’s 67 school districts.

“African American history has value and that’s why we came together to do a well-balanced, thought-provoking curriculum that can be used throughout the public schools of Florida,” Rivers said at a press conference earlier in the day. “There is a mandate to teach African American history but very few pay attention to African American history. Well, we are giving them a curriculum that they can use as a blueprint for making sure that the contributions that African American have made to this society are included.”

Peggy Aune, Vice Chancellor of Strategic Improvement for the Department of Education, accepted the copy for Diaz. While members of the task force explained the content of their delivery, Aune stood and listen before shaking hands at the end.

Meanwhile, the task force won’t wait for DeSantis to act. It will resort to establishing freedom schools throughout the state, Holmes said. Such a concept would be similar to the Freedom Schools that First African Baptist Church operated in 1778 in Savannah, Ga.

Holmes called for a meeting of the minds while taking impromptu questions from reporters outside the Turlington building.

He would like the governor to “sit down with some of our scholars and historians and faith leaders and let’s work this out,” said Holmes, who is also chairman of the task force. “If you don’t teach history correctly we will repeat what Hitler did to the Jews. First, you ban books, then you burned books and then you burned bodies. That’s the history we don’t need to repeat. We need to talk about the richness of African American history.”

The dust up with the governor and legislature started last year when DeSantis rejected the African American portion of the Advanced Placement courses. That prompted formation of the “Teaching Our Own History” committee at a meeting of the Florida General Baptist Convention in Orlando. The committee followed a task force that Holmes had organized months earlier.

DeSantis further agitated the pushback that started when he said African American history had no educational value. Protest ramped up when the governor called for doing away with diversity, equity and inclusion.

That was enough to prompt a rally in Tallahassee last March, led by Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network.

One of the high point on the opening day of the symposium was a presentation of the curriculum by Thompson-Dorsey. 

A glimpse of the “Teaching Our Own History” curriculum showed it covers Black topics like the New World Africa, the White counter Resistance and forced immigration.

There were also five different presentations of curriculums that others have written.

For instance, Ronnie Rice talked about his “Pearls in the storm: A lesson in Black history.” Henry Sandoval, executive director of Black History 365, also presented and talked about seven books that he had on display. He said some are in the public schools in Florida. Rey Robinson and Berthony Napoleon also gave details of a curriculum by 5 in 2 Solutions.

Earlier during a panel discussion, Rev. Carl Johnson, president of the Florida General Baptist Convention, said a meeting with DeSantis is important because he “has insulted our culture.”

During a mini sermon, Rev. Brett Snowden reiterated what the gathering was about.

 “We have to remember that we have a past and that we have to celebrate our past and not allow our past to paralyze us,” said Snowden, pastor at Greater Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Tampa. “Obstacles that come up against us may tinker with our destiny but it doesn’t define our destiny.”