JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Walkout2Learn held a rally for student rights in Downtown Jacksonville after college and high school students staged walkouts Friday afternoon in protest of state policies they say censor history, identities and cultures.
The event was held at A. Phillip Randolph Park and featured local students and activists.
State representative, Angie Nixon, also spoke at the rally.
Mae Flaven, a high school student and member of the LGBTQ community shared her experience at school.
"It's just really stressful and the tension walking down the school halls just thinking about it and that people are so uneducated and don't even know. Also, the tension going on with the teachers and now they're scared on what to teach and what to talk about and walking on eggshells because they're scared their job may be taken away from them the next day," Flaven said.
Kids at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts participated in the demonstration.
During the walkout, students taught a lesson about government censorship, registered to vote and enrolled in a virtual AP African American studies course. Two Douglas Anderson students say they’re fighting for the right to learn about our country’s past in order to save its future.
Madeline Scotti and Aniyah Kargbo say they’re no strangers to censorship, but they want the choice to learn.
“Douglas Anderson is a very inclusive and welcoming community,” Scotti said. “And so we never thought it would reach us here. We never thought it would affect us here, but as we’ve seen in January with the cancellation of ‘Indecent,’ this is a very real thing, and it is happening and this is the future of America if we don’t isolate it in Florida and stop it now.”
The Walkout2Learn demonstration also protested the removal of classroom books.
Kargbo said not being about to learn about African-American curriculum feels like a personal attack.
“We, as students in this school and in this state and in this country are entitled to the truth about what has happened so that we can learn from those things and just make where we live a better place,” explained Kargbo.
St. Augustine mom Carissa Diniz pulled her child at Gambler Rogers Middle School out of class in solidarity with the walkout.
She said she wants to set a good example for her daughter when it comes up to standing up for what she says is right.
“We’re trying to unify us instead of divide and I think that’s what these bills do,” Diniz said. “They prohibit people from learning about history and things that are true just because somebody’s opinion doesn’t agree with it.”