Not funny “haha!”, but funny “WEIRD” how it feels like history just…repeats itself?
Like, every year I say to myself I will be more prepared, or how Texas tried (and failed) to secede, or how some states are banning books (Did you know the most banned book for all time was 1984? HAHAHAHAHAHA *cough*)
And now, we’re banning…teaching Black History? I….okay. I’m not really sure how you can BAN history since yannow, it HAPPENED and people who lived in it, are STILL ALIVE. But also? I’m not really here to discuss CURRENT EVENTS because HISTORY is what I do (and I guess sometimes praise, since I just told ya’ll I listen to gospel while I clean).
So! Let’s talk about what John Berry Meachum in Missouri did when it was illegal to provide “instruction of negroes and mulattoes (also know as them mixed race chirren), in reading or writing”. HE bought a steamboat which he anchored in the middle of the Mississippi River, which made placed it under the authority of the federal government. This floating “Freedom School” had students that were ferried back and forth between St. Louis and the Freedom School in small skiffs, even attracting teachers from the East. Hundreds of Black children were educated in the 1840’s and ‘50’s. One of those kids was James Milton Turner, who would go on to establish 30 new schools for African Americans after the Civil War.
Not that I’m saying that some of these states are trying to make teaching Black people illegal again (right now, anyway), but I AM saying that Florida is the cruise capital of the world, so they’ve already GOT BOATS. If you know, teachers in Florida were interested in how to teach Black History without getting arrested.
Yeah I said it 