Florida Christians Rebel Against Ron DeSantis

Some Black churches and congregations in Florida are teaching their own versions of Black history that they say is different from the guidelines imposed earlier this year by the state.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican currently seeking his party's 2024 nomination for president, has received direct criticism from some after the Florida Department of Education (DOE) implemented changes to educational curriculum for K-12 students in July. In January, the DOE rejected an AP African American Studies course for high school students introduced as part of a pilot program at 60 schools across the country that Jeremy Redfern, now DeSantis' press secretary, said at the time lacks "historical accuracy" and "educational value."

A line within the newly applied guidelines that has arguably drawn the most attention states: "Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." Vice President Kamala Harris deemed it "propaganda" while Fox News' Jesse Watters called it "historical fact."

During a press conference in July, the Florida governor defended the new curriculum standards by saying, "I didn't do it, and I wasn't involved in it." DeSantis also added: "I think what they're doing, is I think that they're probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith, into doing things later in life."

Redfern referred Newsweek to the Florida DOE on Friday, which did not immediately respond for comment.

Some of Florida's more than 200 churches and congregations run by Black pastors have taken the issue into their own hands, offering what they deem not to be sermons, but Black history as it actually occurred.

Pastor Kenneth Johnson of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church recently led an hourlong online lesson about the transatlantic slave trade—the first in what is intended to be a series that will begin this fall, USA Today reported on Friday.

"It wasn't a sermon," Johnson said. "It would have passed any muster as a legitimate class. We don't need government approval to teach our history."

Faith in Florida is a self-described multicultural nonpartisan network of congregation community organizations in the state that address systemic racial and economic issues for individuals of different religious denominations and faiths.

In May, the network said it created its own curriculum and pledged to "take our history and education back into our own hands." That has included an online toolkit providing different resources for the African-American community to better understand its past, according to USA Today.

"People came to this country with skills, okay? And those people developed skills despite slavery, not because of slavery," the organization's research and policy coordinator, Linda Wiggins-Chavis, told ABC affiliate WFTS in Tampa in July.

Both Johnson and Rhonda Thomas, executive director of Faith in Florida, also told USA Today that they have a responsibility to teach a version of history that is not "watered down."

Newsweek reached out to both congregations via phone and email for comment.

Davis Houck, a professor of rhetorical studies at Florida State University and an expert on the Black Freedom Movement, told Newsweek via email that Black churches have always taught Black American history, but that these new efforts are aimed to formalize structured lesson plans and primary historical sources.

"This doesn't surprise me at all," Houck said. "If Black community leaders perceive their history is not being accurately taught, it stands to reason that they would do it themselves—especially because their families have lived that history. On the other side of the ideological register, some white evangelicals are home-schooling their children or sending them to private schools for some of the same reasons, namely that the curricula in public schools, in their estimation, is failing."

The potential implications remain to be seen, he added, depending on if history is taught accurately and is well-vetted.

"If it's not, the blue-red divide might continue to fester," Houck said.

Meanwhile, ahead of the new school year, teachers, students, community members and Teamsters marched to Miami-Dade school board headquarters last month to protest Florida's enacted Black history standards. Attendees said the state wasn't teaching the actual truth, referring to the new guidelines as "historically inaccurate, troubling and deeply offensive."