After Florida restricts Black history, churches step up to teach it

[j brown's body]

"Now, as a new school year started, the Rev. Gaston Smith was standing at the pulpit with a lesson on one of those chapters. After months of controversy over new directives governing classroom instruction in Florida — changes that critics said sanitized or even distorted the past — he and other Black pastors across the state agreed their churches had no choice but to respond. They would teach Black history themselves.

...Then Smith said he wanted to show a documentary about an “injustice that has taken place right here in the state of Florida many years ago.” He stepped aside as the video began playing and a woman named LaVon Bracy recounted being beaten when she became one of the first three Black students at Gainesville High School in 1964.

“If you want to look at who feels bad, I was born into this world as if it was designed for me to live feeling bad,” she said with an exasperated laugh. “I don’t think any lesson should be taught to make anyone feel angry, but if it’s history, it’s history, right?”

...His congregants were feeling battered by all that was happening in the state, and he hoped to remind them of their importance. “Not only to God,” he told them, “but we are important to this nation, important to this state.”"

Link

This is a remarkable story in that it shows those who lived through history are still here to share their stories.

It points out that everyone can feel bad about this history, but that means it's just that much more neccesary to learn it and pass on.

And then, of course, it's shameful that the white people won't allow it to be taught in schools and white kids won't learn it because of....feelings.

Shades of racial segregation.

 

[Ishm]

Rewriting history is a classic move by a govt moving towards authoritarianism.

 

[j brown's body]

Rewriting history is a classic move by a govt moving towards authoritarianism.

Not to mention the banning of teaching the truth.

 

[Ishm]

I guess we will see Ronnie planning some new laws about black churches soon. Can't allow that sort of disobedience in his state.

 

[TheParser]

He stepped aside as the video began playing and a woman named LaVon Bracy recounted being beaten when she became one of the first three Black students at Gainesville High School in 1964.

She says that she was beaten.

In recent years, we have learned the hard way to take with a grain of salt stories such as that of the "actor" in Chicago or the "racist" incident that in fact was a hoax at the Air Force Academy.

 

[j brown's body]

She says that she was beaten.

In recent years, we have learned the hard way to take with a grain of salt stories such as that of the "actor" in Chicago or the "racist" incident that in fact was a hoax at the Air Force Academy.

The newspaper says it too.

"Three young black teenagers in 1964 left the comfort of school friends and the security of all-black Lincoln High School to integrate Gainesville High School, thus playing an important part in the civil rights movement in Alachua County.

Joel Buchanan, Sandra Williams Cummings and LaVon Wright Bracy, along with her father, the Rev. Thomas A. Wright and a police escort, walked into GHS expecting some resistance, but had to endure both verbal and physical abuse."

Students endured plenty of verbal, physical abuse

Three young black teenagers in 1964 left the comfort of school friends and the security of all-black Lincoln High School to integrate Gainesville High School, thus playing an important part in the ci…

www.gainesville.com

 

[DarkWizard12]

"Now, as a new school year started, the Rev. Gaston Smith was standing at the pulpit with a lesson on one of those chapters. After months of controversy over new directives governing classroom instruction in Florida — changes that critics said sanitized or even distorted the past — he and other Black pastors across the state agreed their churches had no choice but to respond. They would teach Black history themselves.

...Then Smith said he wanted to show a documentary about an “injustice that has taken place right here in the state of Florida many years ago.” He stepped aside as the video began playing and a woman named LaVon Bracy recounted being beaten when she became one of the first three Black students at Gainesville High School in 1964.

“If you want to look at who feels bad, I was born into this world as if it was designed for me to live feeling bad,” she said with an exasperated laugh. “I don’t think any lesson should be taught to make anyone feel angry, but if it’s history, it’s history, right?”

...His congregants were feeling battered by all that was happening in the state, and he hoped to remind them of their importance. “Not only to God,” he told them, “but we are important to this nation, important to this state.”"

Link

This is a remarkable story in that it shows those who lived through history are still here to share their stories.

It points out that everyone can feel bad about this history, but that means it's just that much more neccesary to learn it and pass on.

And then, of course, it's shameful that the white people won't allow it to be taught in schools and white kids won't learn it because of....feelings.

Shades of racial segregation.

what's remarkable is that they don't actually differ from florida's history program lol

 

[j brown's body]

what's remarkable is that they don't actually differ from florida's history program lol

Being able to offer lessons without fear of breaking the White feelings law and the harassment that comes with it gives them the freedom to include a wider range of study and the safety to have open discussion.

 

[Integrityrespec]

She says that she was beaten.

In recent years, we have learned the hard way to take with a grain of salt stories such as that of the "actor" in Chicago or the "racist" incident that in fact was a hoax at the Air Force Academy.

The left when feeling necessity will create "history" and have no problems with doing so.

 

[Juks]

The left when feeling necessity will create "history" and have no problems with doing so.

She says that she was beaten.

In recent years, we have learned the hard way to take with a grain of salt stories such as that of the "actor" in Chicago or the "racist" incident that in fact was a hoax at the Air Force Academy.

Unbelievable you two. it is as if a German would deny that the Holocaust took place... I am dumbfounded. You do know that there are existing pictures from the 1950 and 1960th (unlike the holocast)? Is that what the libraries in the US south are burning at the moment?

Al you need for proof is the laws of segregations from that time and how they are formulated. That can't be burned or erased no matter how much you try.

 

[j brown's body]

Unbelievable you two. it is as if a German would deny that the Holocaust took place... I am dumbfounded. You do know that there are existing pictures from the 1950 and 1960th (unlike the holocast)? Is that what the libraries in the US south are burning at the moment?

Al you need for proof is the laws of segregations from that time and how they are formulated. That can't be burned or erased no matter how much you try.

Apparently our real history is an unrelenting happy one.

 

[samiam5211]

Black churches teaching black history isn't really going to make up for anything.

White kids in the panhandle are the ones who need to be exposed to the topic.

 

[bomberfox]

Unbelievable you two. it is as if a German would deny that the Holocaust took place... I am dumbfounded. You do know that there are existing pictures from the 1950 and 1960th (unlike the holocast)? Is that what the libraries in the US south are burning at the moment?

Al you need for proof is the laws of segregations from that time and how they are formulated. That can't be burned or erased no matter how much you try.

There are far more pictures and even video footage thats been unearthed about the holocaust due to the interconnected nature of the internet.

 

[jpevans]

Black churches teaching black history isn't really going to make up for anything.

White kids in the panhandle are the ones who need to be exposed to the topic.

Teaching Black History in Black churches is not a bad thing. Black Churches have always been central to the Black experience. But can DeSantis outlaw TeeVee & periodicals highlighting Black stories. How racist did a thread get that it had to be shut down.

 

[samiam5211]

Teaching Black History in Black churches is not a bad thing. Black Churches have always been central to the Black experience. But can DeSantis outlaw TeeVee & periodicals highlighting Black stories. How racist did a thread get that it had to be shut down.

I didn't mean it was a bad thing, i just mean that the people who need to be taught black history the most are white people.

 

[j brown's body]

I didn't mean it was a bad thing, i just mean that the people who need to be taught black history the most are white people.

Indeed. In fact, I never learned more about white people than when I taught a Black history class.

 

[jpevans]

I didn't mean it was a bad thing, i just mean that the people who need to be taught black history the most are white people.

I got you...

 

[jpevans]

Indeed. In fact, I never learned more about white people than when I taught a Black history class.

Studying the Blues morphed into studying Black History, because they are intertwined. Black history is also white history a history of mans inhumanity to man, but also mans humanity. Blacks could not have made the gains they did without white allies. The basis of stupid laws to whitewash history to save the tender white souls the pain of knowing the history (That isn't too far in the past) of that inhumanity rather than putting it in the past, but not forgotten. Burying it opens it all to be repeated. Because the Black folk ain't gonna forget, whether they are taught at home, in the community or in school.