Black toddler handcuffed during Rosa Parks ‘role-play’ at Florida day care, NAACP says

A Black 2-year-old attending a Florida day care was handcuffed and fingerprinted by a white student peer during a “racist” reenactment of Rosa Parks’ arrest, the NAACP said. But the school disputes handcuffs were used in the role-play activity.

In letters written on Dec. 12 to the Florida Department of Children and Families and Building Brains Academy in St. Cloud, Florida, the NAACP says a toddler was subjected to “psychological harm” when they were involved in a historical role-play.

A 2-year-old girl, who is Black, was put in the role of Rosa Parks, and was handcuffed and then fingerprinted by her white peers to represent Parks’ arrest from a Montgomery, Alabama, bus after refusing to give up her seat to a white man in 1955, according to the NAACP.

The school, however, disputes handcuffs were used during the activity and said handcuffs would not have been available to the toddler-aged students.

“Unfortunately, photographs shared of the activity do not offer a complete or accurate representation of the full lesson about the importance of equal rights, nor do they make it clear that at no time were restraints of any kind used on any student,” Building Brains Academy spokesperson Sandi Poreda said. “We deeply regret the assumption that our teachers, our leadership or our administration would in any way choose to make a child feel uncomfortable or negatively singled out.”

The school said the reenactment had been “spontaneous” and “in the spirit of the moment,” according to Poreda.

The girl’s parents sent photos of their daughter to the NAACP “as evidence that this activity occurred as described,” the organization said in the letter, which were described as “disturbing.”

The organization is calling upon the school to apologize to the families of its students and make changes to the curriculum that included the Rosa Parks role-play.

Poreda said the school had reached out to the student’s family as soon as they “expressed their concern” and apologized, then apologized “again on multiple occasions.”

Poreda continued to say that since the activity was “spontaneous and unplanned,” role-playing the arrest is not an authorized part of the school’s regular curriculum and the school’s administration didn’t know about the role-playing ahead of time.

“In light of the situation, we have advised all of our faculty that any deviations from the approved curriculum, no matter how slight or unplanned, must first be approved by school administration. We will continue ensuring our students are exposed to a curriculum that celebrates equality and diversity,” Poreda said.

In a statement accompanying the letters, the NAACP said the lesson was part of a greater movement in Florida to “suppress and rewrite Black history.”

“We consider the activity an inappropriate trivialization of a significant historical event, insensitive to the struggles against segregation, and psychologically harmful to all students involved, especially Black students reenacting such a traumatic moment in American history,” the NAACP said in the letter to Building Brains Academy.

Poreda said the letter from the NAACP caught the school by surprise, and the school had not been contacted by the organization before the letters were sent.

“The portrayal of Rosa Parks should be a source of empathy, not a means to inflict pain. The Florida NAACP State Conference vehemently denounces this act,” NAACP Florida State Conference President Adora Nweze said in the release. “Our educational institutions must commit to inclusive and accurate historical representations and teachings that preserve the emotional well-being of all students.”

McClatchy News reached out to the Department of Children and Families for more information on a possible investigation and is waiting for a response.

St. Cloud is about 30 miles south of Orlando.

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