Florida is saying Black history doesn’t matter to all | Opinion

In a Jan.  12 letter, the Florida Department of Education stated that the College Board’s new AP African American Studies course is “Inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” It is not at all inexplicable how we got here.

As a former student of four AP courses and a former teacher of AP Spanish, I don’t believe for a moment that the College Board produced a curriculum lacking in educational value. What the FLDOE is saying, overtly, is that Black History has no value in Florida. Black History isn’t “inexplicably” contrary to Florida law. The laws were written to make it that way.

This is perfectly in line - not with the actual values or history of our state - but with Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration’s racist crusade against the truth. Florida’s history is hard. It’s much easier to attack a curriculum or teachers or textbooks than to sit with the truth of it.

Heather Jordan
Heather Jordan

In most American history textbooks, Florida’s history doesn’t even begin until Andrew Jackson. Spanish Florida is much harder to teach while clinging to notions of American Exceptionalism. Students might have questions like, Why did so many slaves in Georgia and Alabama escape to Spanish Florida? The answer is that Spanish law was more favorable to people of African descent than U.S. law. They could be citizens and own property. And Spain wouldn’t turn them over to their former owners. The day Florida became a U.S. Territory was a very bad day for all those people who had come here looking for freedom.

A mural of Zora Neale Hurston, Betty Mae Jumper and Marjorie Harris Carr was unveiled Friday, Aug.27, 2021 in Downtown Tallahassee.
A mural of Zora Neale Hurston, Betty Mae Jumper and Marjorie Harris Carr was unveiled Friday, Aug.27, 2021 in Downtown Tallahassee.

That is a hard truth to accept for someone like me. I am a proud American and a proud Floridian with roots in Taylor County as far back as the 1840’s. Realizing that my white family was only able to move into Florida when it became a part of the U.S. was hard. My family’s history began here when Indigenous and Black people were forced to flee the area or face a new and hostile government. The U.S. Government. But knowing my family’s place in this history is important to me and I would never try to pretend the story was something it wasn’t. I can love my country, my state, and my family without denying the truth. And so can all Floridians.

From Anna Jai Kingsley to Zora Neale Hurston, Florida has a rich history. All Florida students deserve to know more about the history of their own state and the history of their country. The whole history. If this history wasn’t powerful, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to silence it.

Heather Jordan is a Tallahassee native currently living in Nashville, TN, with her husband and two children. 

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida is saying Black history doesn’t matter to all