JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Just weeks before students go back to school in Duval County, educators, parents, and students are protesting new state guidelines for how African American history is taught in public schools.
Just before Tuesday's Duval County School Board meeting, many gathered outside the district office with signs and chants. They accused some state and local leaders of whitewashing Black history and pushing misleading and false propaganda onto students in classrooms if taught these new lessons.
"Why are we teaching our student lies?" former Duval County teacher Kate Dobbins asked the board.
Parents and teachers showed passion at the podium.
"African American history is a part of the fabric of our nation it is a story of resilience, perseverance, triumph over adversity," NAACP member Tristan Davis said.
During the meeting, parents, teachers and students asked the Duval County School Board to pass a resolution rejecting new state standards for teaching black history in public schools.
One lesson suggests that enslaved Africans benefitted from slavery because they acquired skills that could be applied for their personal benefit. Protestors also object to lessons about massacres during the reconstruction era which suggest there was violence on both sides.
"Our students deserve a true and complete history and these standards are not representative of that sort of history," teacher Monica Gold said.
"As an African American high school student I'd like to learn more about my history," Amari Gold said.
Supporters of the new lessons say they tell a story of Black resilience.
"What it says is that any task that they learned in slavery when they were freed, they used that to the betterment of themselves which is a victory," Chaplain Jerry Woodham said.
"I also support the new rules and standards put forth by the Florida Department of Education," Margaret Yarbrough said.
A few others even defended teachers' rights in the classroom.
"Let teachers teach the truth," Katie Hathaway said.
In a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, Governor Ron DeSantis invited Harris to discuss her criticisms of black history standards in Tallahassee but Harris declined.