Enslaved Didn’t ‘Benefit’ From Slavery, Outraged Newark Activists Say

NEWARK, NJ — The state of Florida’s latest development regarding race and education has been creating outrage across the nation, including in Newark, New Jersey.

Last week, the Florida State Board of Education approved new African American history standards, which includes language about how “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” See the 216-page document online here.

Flordia Gov. Ron DeSantis has repeatedly defended the new language, while insisting that his critics are intentionally misinterpreting one line of the sweeping curriculum.

Many civil rights activists – including the People’s Organization for Progress (POP) in Newark – have disagreed.

The POP – which helped to spearhead a massive protest in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder – held a news conference in Newark on Monday to condemn the new curriculum, particularly the notion that “African Americans benefited from slavery.”

“It is not only outrageous, wrong and racist, but it takes place at a place and time when bedrock rights of African Americans and women are under full assault, and there is a legion of people, like those who have voted for Trump and DeSantis, who support it, and support the violent and racist policies and laws that are coming with it,” said POP founding chair and former U.S. Senate candidate Lawrence Hamm.

“The centuries of enslavement of African people in the United States is one of the most uniquely horrific chapters of human history,” Hamm said. “It was a crime against humanity.”

“The assertion by the Florida State Board of Education social studies curriculum that slavery was personally beneficial to the enslaved is just another version of a long-standing racist and white supremacist lie that slavery was good for Black people,” Hamm said.

“This is a form of racist indoctrination and is yet another example of institutionalized racism in education,” he added, calling on President Joe Biden and the U.S. Justice Department to take action.

“It is an affront to human dignity that must be condemned in no uncertain terms,” Hamm said.

“Let's be clear ... Governor DeSantis’ effort to suppress the facts of the U.S. enslavement of Black people is just the tip of the iceberg,” agreed Bashir Muhammad Ptah Akinyele, a history and Africana studies teacher at Weequahic High School in Newark.

“He reflects the thinking of many people in today’s power structure," Akinyele added. “The U.S. establishment has an extensive racist history of viewing Black History as illegitimate history.”

Other speakers at Monday's rally included former New Jersey Assemblyman William Payne (the co-author of New Jersey’s Amistad public school educational law), Akil Khalfani (director of Essex County College’s Institute for Africana studies), retired Weequahic High School public school history teacher Akili Buchanan (the leader of the movement that changed the name of South Side High School to Malcolm X Shabazz High School in Newark, NJ in the 1970s), and TJ Whitaker (the founder of Maplewood / South Orange Freedom School).

The Newark-based group has also recently rallied to condemn the censorship efforts of Africana studies in advanced placement curriculum.

• See Related: Newark Activists Decry Attempts To 'Stifle' Black History In Schools
• See Related: Newark Activists Gather To Protest Ban On Black History
• See Related: Newark Teacher Fights Youth Violence With Black History, 'Self-Esteem'

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