Black Member of Florida History Curriculum Working Group Calls Kamala Harris’s Accusation That State Is ‘Replacing History With Lies’ ‘Categorically False’
Dr. William B. Allen, a longtime academic, former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and a member of Florida’s African American History Standards Workgroup called claims made by Vice President Kamala Harris in highly-publicized remarks last week “categorically false.”
In a speech last Thursday, Harris declared “that in the State of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery,” referring to the approval of a curriculum developed by Allen’s working group. “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it,” continued Harris.
The next day, Harris repeated the claim, charging those responsible for the curriculum with wanting to “replace history with lies.”
The line from the working group to which Harris objects states that classroom instruction should include “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
In an interview with ABC News, Allen defended the curriculum.
“It is the case that Africans proved resourceful, resilient and adaptive, and were able to develop skills and aptitudes which served to their benefit, both while enslaved and after enslaved,” he argued in a short clip that ABC aired.
In a thread on the artist formerly known as Twitter, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R) press secretary shared more unaired clips from the interview with Allen.
Asked how he would respond to critics of the new standards, Allen replied that “the only criticism I’ve encountered so far is a single one that was articulated by the vice president, and which was an error. As I stated in my response to the vice president, it was categorically false. It was never said that slavery was beneficial to Africans.”
He continued later in the interview:
I just want to foster and encourage everyone to take the time to read or as I said in my response to the vice president, I think every intellect can understand the language written there if people will only take the time to read it. And it’s only those who don’t take the time to read it who will misstate it.
Yesterday, @abcnews aired a very small section of their interview with a member of Florida’s African American History Standards Workgroup, Dr. William B. Allen.
Here’s more of the interview, where Dr. Allen debunks @VP’s narrative and calls her criticism “categorically false.”🧵 pic.twitter.com/hPFbKNZPs1
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) July 23, 2023
In a statement with Dr. Frances Presley Rice, another member of the working group, Allen characterized critics’ attempts to “reduce months of work to create Florida’s first ever stand-alone strand of African American History Standards to a few isolated expressions without context” as “disappointing.”
“Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants,” they argued.
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