TALAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida faith leaders, Democratic lawmakers, and Black community activists from across the state rallied at the State Capitol in opposition to the state’s rejection of an AP African American Studies course.
The Northside Coalition and other local civil rights groups hit the road to Tallahassee early Wednesday morning to amplify the message they hope to send to the Governor and Florida Legislature.
“Stop the attack on Blacks,” chanted the crowd.
Ben Frazier of the Northside Coalition led dozens of other local activists to speak out against the state’s rejection of an AP African American Studies Course.
“The Governor is attempting to whitewash American history. We will not allow him to do that,” said Frazier.
Governor Ron DeSantis explained last month the course had been rejected due to the inclusion of sections of Black Queer Studies and modern civil rights movements like Black Lives Matter.
READ: Florida Gov. DeSantis to defund college diversity programs
Those sections didn’t make it into the final course released on February 1st, yet still, the state has not green-lit the course.
Outside the State Capitol Wednesday afternoon, Democratic state lawmakers addressed a crowd of several hundred, expressing their frustration with the College Board seemingly giving in to Florida’s demands.
“Black history is American history. Black queer history is American history. Black immigrant history is American history,” said State Senator Shevrin Jones (D-Miami Gardens).
The Reverend Al Sharpton led the rally.
“Every time we’ve gotten to an inflection point in terms of racism and bigotry it was always around education,” said Sharpton. “If you would study history, governor, you would have known that to mess with us in education always ends in your defeat.”
He indicated his organization, the National Action Network, will work to register voters in Florida to fight DeSantis’ agenda.
“Because if we can’t protect education in Florida, it’ll jump to Alabama, it’ll jump to Texas,” said Sharpton.
Sharpton said with DeSantis likely eyeing a Presidential run, he’s drawing a line in the sand and dubbed him with the nickname, “Baby Trump”.
“He needs to understand that he will have resistance all over this country if he keeps messing with Black and LGBTQ and women,” said Sharpton.
Aside from the specific course on African American Studies, DeSantis confirmed Tuesday, the state may consider severing ties with the College Board altogether and replace AP courses with other options like dual enrolment, IB, and Cambridge programs.
READ: Gov. DeSantis doubles down on threat to sever ties with College Board
“Florida students are going to have that ability. That is not going to be diminished. In fact, we are going to continue to work to expand it. But it’s not clear to me that this operator is the one that is going to need to be used in the future,” said DeSantis at a press conference in Jacksonville Tuesday.
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