Photos: Facebook\Terri Kay
[Members of the People’s Organization For Progress (below) hold a banner stating the theme of a press conference the group held in Newark, NJ to denounce Florida’s public school curriculum that teaches slavery was beneficial to Black people. (Photo courtesy of Terri Kay)]
The People’s Organization For Progress (POP) held a press conference on Monday to condemn Gov Ron DeSantis’ Florida public school curriculum that says African Americans benefited from slavery. It took place outside the Rodino Federal Building in Newark, New Jersey.
Community leaders, educators and members of grassroots organizations were in attendance. All of the speakers expressed outrage that the Florida State Board of Education was mandating that students be taught that Black people personally benefited from slavery because it taught them skills.
“To say that Black people did not benefit from slavery would be an understatement. Slavery was not only detrimental, it was a crime against Black people,” Lawrence Hamm, Chairman, People’s Organization For Progress stated.
Hamm said several demands were made during the press conference. “First, we demanded the repeal of the Stop Woke Act passed by the Florida state legislature and signed into law by Gov DeSantis which mandated teaching the lie that Black people benefited from slavery,” he said.
“What greater injustice could there be than to force children descended from the enslaved to learn a false narrative that somehow their ancestors benefited from their enslavement. This clearly is a form of racial oppression and mental abuse. All children are harmed by learning this lie,” Hamm stated.
“Second, we called upon President Biden, his administration, and especially the Justice Department, and Department of Education to act now and intervene directly to stop this abuse of the Black students in Florida and the violation of their human and civil rights,” he said.
“Third, we demanded the full implementation of the Amistad Law which requires the teaching of Black History in all New Jersey public schools. Only a relatively small number of the state’s 600 school districts are in full compliance with the law,” Hamm said.
“Fourth, we could not raise the demand for teaching the truth about slavery without raising the demand to repair the damage that was done to those who were enslaved. We demanded Reparations for the descendants of Africans enslaved in this country, and immediate passage of reparations bills in Congress and the New Jersey legislature,” he said.
Besides Hamm speakers at the press conference included the following individuals. Charles Hall Jr, President, RWDSU Local 108, and William Payne, a former Assemblyman who the sponsor of the Amistad Law which required Black history to be taught in all New Jersey.
There were presentations from teachers including Bashir Akinyele, T.J. Whitaker, Sundjata Sekou, Sharon Baldwin, and Akili Buchanan. They are present and former educators in New Jersey school districts.
Dr Akil Khalfani, Director, Africana Institute, Essex County College and Professor of Sociology spoke, as did long-time activist Zayid Muhammad representing Newark Communities For Accountable Policing.
