WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:00 — 33.4MB)
This program originally aired on August 21, 2023:
On today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell, spend the hour with Dr. Marvin Dunn. Dr. Dunn is fighting against the potential miseducation of countless children and young adults in Florida. He is here to discuss his efforts to combat this miseducation and the current state of racial politics in Florida.
Last Wednesday, August 16, 2023, before the first day of school for the Miami-Dade County school system, he led a march to protest the new education curriculum standards instituted by the Republican Governor Ron DeSantis that affect the teaching of Black history. This is part of a larger effort by DeSantis to purge what he calls “woke” idealogy in Florida.
Earlier this year, DeSantis had rejected the College Board’s AP African American Studies course for high school students because it included lessons on diaspora reparations, Black LGBTQIA+ studies, and the Black Lives Matter Movement. He has also barred instruction in schools that suggests anyone is privileged or oppressed based on their race or skin color, according to a CNN report. The new curriculum teaches that some Black people benefited from being enslaved because they learned useful skills.
Dr. Dunn was joined by some members of the Teamsters National Black Caucus, who then were holding a conference in Miami. Tennessee state Representative Justin Pearson also joined the protest. Rep. Pearson, along with fellow representative Justin James, had recently been voted back into office, after being expelled for calling out state Republicans for failing to pass gun control laws after the Covenant School mass shooting in Nashville.
The union representing around 150,000 Florida teachers, the Florida Education Association, called these new curriculum changes “a disservice to Florida students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994.” One of the most controversial aspects of these new standards includes teaching that some Blacks benefited from chattel slavery by learning useful skills. Further, these new curriculum changes include teaching that the Rosewood massacre was instigated by when a black man shot two white men who came onto his porch, rather than that a white woman falsely accused a Black man of assault.
Dr. Dunn has been leading “Teach No Lies” tours that take teachers and young people to places like Rosewood, Florida. Officially, it is recorded that the Rosewood Massacre of 1923 led to the killing of six Black residents and the fleeing of the rest of its black residents. Many say, however, that the death toll was much higher. By the massacre’s end, all but one of Rosewood’s buildings had been burned down. No law enforcement agency ever did an investigation, nor were there any criminal charges.
Dr. Dunn is a professor emeritus at Florida International University, and the author of many books, including A History of Florida: Through Black Eyes, where he writes:
Almost all of Florida’s painful racial past has been whitewashed, marginalized, or buried intentionally. But I was born here. I know Florida’s flowers and her warts.
He is also a co-founder of the Miami Center for Racial Justice. He began giving his Tell No Lies Tours in response to the state’s escalating efforts to further whitewash Florida’s Black History.
On a personal front, Dr. Dunn recently saw his neighbor, David Emanuel, convicted on July 26 on six counts of federal hate crime charges for screaming the N-word and attempting to run him and five companions over in September 2022. Dr. Dunn, 83, acquired his five-acre property across from Emanuel’s home back in 2008 and turned it into a park to “celebrate Rosewood heritage.” He is the only black homeowner currently in Rosewood.
Credits:
Today’s hosts are Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell.
Bring It On!’s Executive Producer is Clarence Boone.
Tonight’s Assistant Producer is Liz Mitchell.
The show Consultant and WFHB News Department Director is Kade Young.
The Program Engineer is Chantalle LaFontant.
The original theme music was created by Jamyl Efiom with additional background tracks by David Baker.
