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Jacksonville, FL → Tallahassee, FL → Orlando, FL 425.0 mi (684.0 km) |
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Let’s walk ‘n’ talk, everyone!
The decisions of today are the history of tomorrow, and Florida’s made some strange high-level decisions lately. Two bills brought me to the Sunshine State this particular week, because they target education: House Bill 1557 (the “Don’t Say Gay” bill), which limits how teachers can talk about gender identity, and House Bill 7 (the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act”), which limits how schools and companies promote diversity and inclusion. The governor’s gone to war over these with organizations like Disney and the College Board, but today, a bunch of students from across the state are making their stand for their own education, and I sure wanted to see their Walkout 2 Learn in action!
So today I’m the college town of Tallahassee, home to Florida State University. The capital since 1821, it’s a city full of history that could easily come under fire from these bills. For instance, schools could teach about Spanish colonists building Mission San Luis in 1656, and they could talk about the enormous Apalachee council house built here. However, a teacher might get fired for talking about how Mission San Luis was destroyed: England went to war with Spain because Spain would not return slaves who escaped into La Florida! The Stop W.O.K.E. Act says that, in the classroom, “An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race,” but history’s full of uncomfortable moments that could easily make a student of English descent feel guilt or discomfort. But it’s not the point of history to make anyone feel a certain way!
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Teachers in Florida could teach about the Lake Jackson Mounds, the southernmost Missisippian mounds, which were a major ceremonial and political center between 1100 and 1500 CE. They might be able to teach how members of the Muskogee (Creek) tribes migrated south and merged with other tribes to become the Seminole, but probably not that they were pushed out by English colonists! Even though a special trail runs to the ruins of Colonel Robert Butler’s grist mill, it would be a job risker to imply that this ward of Andrew Jackson funded his all-night “Feasts of Roses” through the slave labor on his cotton plantation, which surrounded the mounds! That’s because these connections carry hints of Critical Race Theory, which was banned in Florida in 2021!
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So, around 11:30, I headed over to Landis Green at Florida State University and waited by the Legacy Fountain to see what students thought about these measures. After all, the Florida Department of Education banned a pilot AP African American Studies course back in February over its optional material (intersectionality, Black Lives Matter, queer theory, etc.) violated state law! The governor even went so far as to hint that Florida schools could stop working with the College Board, which doesn’t just run AP tests but also the SAT and PSAT! That could put Florida students at a huge disadvantage nationally! But the College Board went ahead and removed a lot of the controversial content from the course they’d taken ten years to plan, and that’s why high school and college students across the state walked out of class today at 12:00 sharp!
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The Walkout 2 Learn protest was organized in part by Zander Moricz, whose valedictory speech in May of 2022 went viral for the coded way he got around the administration telling him he couldn’t say he was gay (he had “curly hair”). He’s now one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which, just a few days ago, expanded prohibitions on talking about sexual orientation and gender identity from 3rd grade through 12th. Here at FSU, amid the shouts of a street preacher blocked by rainbow umbrellas, student leaders set up their tent to gather pledges from young voters: they would not vote for anyone who supported bans or bills that stripped history!
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Poli-sci major, Deonte Clarke, delivered a five-minute “banned” history lesson, full of truly “shocking” stuff! What kind of stuff? Well, Florida elected America’s first Black Congressman, Josiah T. Walls, in 1871! The song known as the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, was first performed in Jacksonville for Lincoln’s birthday, 1900, by Florida natives, James Weldon & John Rosamond Johnson! Mr. Clarke also illustrated intersectionality by spotlighting important figures who were both Black and LGBTQ, like Audre Lorde, Bayard Rustin, and Marsha P. Johnson. Then, when the lesson was done, students across the state had the choice to register for the banned AP class, or, for those already in college, visit a food truck!
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I had a lot to think about after the walkout as I wandered toward the Florida capitol building, especially while I’m working on installing California’s first LGBT historical landmark. When is it appropriate to teach kids to recognize and respect differences? I’d say as early as possible! Should history always leave us feeling rosy? I should hope not! After all, how else would we keep an eye on new terrible things if we’re not aware of old terrible things? I wondered if the folks in this capitol could understand that.
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Probably not, because this Nationally Registered capitol building isn’t the capitol anymore! The actual working capitol of Florida is a huge tower behind the historic façade, which, to me, kind of embodied the detachment behind these reactionary bills. HB 1069 prevents public school employees and contractors from giving pronouns that don’t correspond to their sex at birth. There are bills on the docket to ban gender-affirming care for trans kids & charge parents of those kids with child abuse (SB 254), ban trans people from using certain bathrooms (HB 1521), and of course, allow healthcare providers and insurance companies to deny service to any patient for any conscience-based objection (SB 1580)!
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This is a scary pot to watch boil from all the way across the country, but I was encouraged by all the students who participated in Walkout 2 Learn, especially those who were threatened by their school administrators. Maybe the kids will be all right. Maybe we can help them out, wherever we are, by signing petitions and donating to organizations that are either combatting these bills or continuing to build a better world. We’re shaping history right now, and once this storm passes, I hope Florida’s famous sunshine leaves us with a rainbow!
Walk on!
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Total Ground Covered: 873.0 mi (1,405.0 km) |
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