Florida Decides to Teach That Our Ancestors Benefitted From Being Enslaved

Explore Our Galleries

An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

July 20, 2023

By Aziah Siid, Word in Black

Florida classes will teach the benefits slavery instead of the atrocity (Timothy H. O’Sullivan/ Wikipedia)

Florida has taken yet another stride against teaching the full scope of Black history in statewide public schools — and it’s sparking criticism from advocates and families both state and nationwide.

The new standards, posted on July 19 to the Florida Department of Education website, approved require public schools to teach that enslaved people “developed skills that could be applied for their personal benefit” and more.

“The notion that enslaved people benefitted from being enslaved is inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish in our education system.” Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani said.

“I am very concerned by these standards,” Eskamani said. “Especially some of the notions that you know, enslaved people benefitted from being enslaved is inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish in our educational curriculum.”

As Harvard Law School professor Cornell William Brooks wrote on Twitter, “Florida‘s new educational standards will assault the emotional health of Black children. If the Supreme Court found segregated education hurt Black children in 1954, THIS segregated white supremacist version of Black history will do the same in 2023.”

Finish the article.

ABHM helps to shed light on the truth, from slavery to BLM.

Read more stories like this.

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.