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Students in Florida are reportedly using their Saturdays to learn Black history not taught in their schools.
According to the Associated Press, Florida students are giving up their weekends to receive Black history lessons from several venues across the state amid attacks on "wokeness" in education led by Governor Ron DeSantis.
Charlene Farrington and her staff met with teenagers on Saturday mornings to teach lessons about South Florida’s Caribbean roots, the state’s dark history of lynchings, the lasting effects of segregation, the Civil Rights Movements, and more.
Florida students are also learning more about African American history on Saturdays at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray Beach. Several programs at community centers across the state are being supported by Black churches through Faith in Florida, which developed its own Black history toolkit last year.
Reports of the weekend programs come after DeSantis signed a law in 2022 restricting certain race-based conversations in schools and businesses. The DeSantis administration also blocked a new Advanced Placement (AP) course on African American Studies from being taught in Florida last year.
Though Florida public schools are still required to teach African American history, many families are concerned that the state's education system can no longer adequately address the subject. Students and parents feel instruction has been limited to covering figures like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and rarely extends beyond Black History Month in Feburary.
When her child started school, Sulaya Williams said she launched her own organization to teach Black history in community settings after finding the instruction to be inadequate. Williams currently teaches Saturday school at a public library in Fort Lauderdale.
“We wanted to make sure that our children knew our stories, to be able to pass down to their children,” Williams said.
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