Historian Marvin Dunn has joined parents, teachers and supporters to take on Ron DeSantis & Florida’s attack on Black history, and pushing the notion that slavery benefited Black Americans.
In an interview with ABC News, Dunn said,”That means to say that to Black people that there was some advantage, some positive benefit to being enslaved. They weren’t even considered to be persons. So how could they have personal benefits?”
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Dunn is a professor at Florida International University, and part of the non-profit coalition that founded The Miami Center for Racial Justice. The group has held rallies and teaching tours at Florida’s historical sites to counter some of the misconceptions they say are now being taught. Its overall mission is to Teach The Truth.
A statement on the MCRJ website reads:
The Miami Center for Racial Justice opposes book banning in Florida schools as it is being done by the DeSantis administration. Books are now being banned based on the political ideology of Governor Ron DeSantis. Books are being banned based on a complaint from a single parent. One parent was able to get a Florida school district to ban 182 books based only on her complaint. The Center is organizing a variety of community-based organizations to join in this fight. We are buying banned books to distribute to Parent Teacher Associations across the state. Leaving the school out of it, the parents may choose to give the banned book to their children. Banned Book Caravans are being planned for this summer to take place in several communities on the same day and at the same time.
Dunn is worried that the country is not far away from a period of severe anti-race violence, and the only way to solve this problem is to educate people about the truth. He says, “It’s important to know history, to not repeat history. It’s important to note so that we don’t do it again.”
The Center conducts several Teach the Truth Tours each year for high school and University students. The tours cover several locations where racial violence has occurred in Florida – Mims, Newberry, Ocoee, Rosewood, and others.
