‘Black history is under attack.’ Hundreds in Miami protest DeSantis’ school standards
As Noelle Barnes listened to Justin Pearson speak to the crowd, she wept.
“When he was on stage, his passionate rallying cry for truth brought tears to my eyes,” said Barnes, 40, a Miami entrepreneur.
Pearson, one of three Black Democratic lawmakers temporarily ousted by the GOP-dominated Tennessee House of Representatives this spring after they advocated for more gun control, spoke to about 350 people protesting outside the Miami-Dade School Board headquarters Wednesday afternoon as the board met.
The multi-racial and ethnic group had marched in the heat of the day from Booker T. Washington High School in Overtown, 1200 NW Sixth Ave., to the board’s headquarters at 1450 NE Second Avenue under the banner, “Teach No Lies.”
They were protesting the Florida Board of Education adopting social studies standards in late July that, in part, suggested that some slaves benefited from their bondage. The standards also said mob violence against Blacks like the 1921 Tulsa Massacre included “violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.”
They asked Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to backtrack the standards — which guide teachers’ lessons in Florida public schools — and pleaded with the Miami-Dade School Board to speak out against them.
Pearson, dressed in a blue suit and a red-and-blue tie, stepped onto an impromptu stage on the sidewalk, grabbed the microphone and declared “no lie can live forever,” citing the late civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
They roared back.
“These things are unfair and wrong and immoral, and we got enough backbone in this moment, in this racist state, to still speak the truth,” he said. “We speak the truth. And we demand that they teach the truth.”
School Board Chair Maria Teresa Rojas didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from the Herald Wednesday.
School Board Member Steve Gallon III, who participated in a town hall in Miami Gardens last week and condemned some of the new state guidelines, temporarily left the School Board meeting to stand outside with the protesters, but didn’t address the crowd.
“I didn’t speak because the platform and the moment belonged to the people assembled there,” he said in a statement to the Herald. “My presence, not my words, was to salute their efforts and embrace of democracy in action.”
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Díaz Jr. had agreed to attend the town hall last week about the standards, event organizers said, but then he pulled out the night before, saying he would be visiting schools instead.
READ MORE: Florida education commissioner pulls out of Black history town hall in Miami Gardens
‘It’s a big lie!’ says 7-year-old protester
When Wednesday’s protest started around 10 a.m. in front of Booker T. Washington, about 80 people congregated. They carried signs with messages like, “No colonial narratives in the classroom” and “These are not my standards.”
Naima Campbell, a 7-year-old, raised her own cardboard sign, which she crafted with colorful markers. She wrote “teaching racism” and crossed it off in red.
Asked why she attended the protest, Campbell, who goes to the Montessori School of North Miami, looked up at her mom, Wakumi Douglas, who stood by her side.
“What’s the governor up to, baby?” Douglas, 38, prompted.
“He’s saying slavery helped people, but it didn’t,” Naima replied. “It’s a big lie!”
Douglas, a social worker from Liberty City, smiled and said: “That’s right. All he’s doing is promoting division, and we have to take a stand against that.”
DeSantis has defended the standards: “These were scholars who put that together, it was not anything that was done politically,” he said during a campaign stop in Utah shortly after the board adopted the curriculum guidelines.
READ MORE: ‘We need to hear it.’ This tour explores Florida’s horrific history of racial violence
Marvin Dunn, 83, a professor emeritus at Florida International University who has led “Teach the Truth’ tours about horrific acts of violence against Black residents in Florida’s history, led the group. Despite the 90-degree temperatures, they marched for about 30 minutes until they got to the School Board building and met other protesters, mainly from the Teamsters National Black Caucus.
“When Black history is under attack, what do we do?” a protester screamed as they walked.
“Stand up, fight attack,” Mayade Ersoff responded, along with the others.
Ersoff, 61, took a day off from work to be there. She’s been teaching for 28 years, and teaches history and civics at Palmetto Middle School in Miami-Dade Schools. She said she doesn’t plan to amend her lessons to include the state’s input.
“We’re supposed to, but I’m not. I wasn’t hired to teach lies,” she said.
Miami-Dade schools start Thursday
Miami-Dade County Public Schools start the new school year Thursday. Superintendent Jose Dotres said last Friday that educators will incorporate the new standards into their coursework around October.
Ersoff questioned the silence by the Miami-Dade School Board and Dotres.
“Nobody has said a word because they’re all too afraid; they’re all afraid of DeSantis,” she said. “Why are they in education if they’re not going to support teachers?”
The school district’s communication office couldn’t immediately provide comment from Dotres on Wednesday.
Malika Laurenceau took a train from her home in Palm Beach County to downtown Miami to spend her 33rd birthday at the protest.
She’s not a mother yet, but she said she fears for her nine nieces and nephews, ages ranging from 11 months to 13 years. She works as a freelance designer in the technology industry.
“My parents always told me education is everything, because that’s the one thing that they can’t take from you,” she said. “But now they want to take it from us, so we have fight for our children to be educated right.”
READ MORE: Classrooms have become political battlegrounds in Florida. Will it intensify this year?
