JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Following the Florida Department of Education's change to African American history curriculum, a Jacksonville pastor and middle school teacher resigned Wednesday.
Pastor R.L. Gundy told First Coast News he is "outraged" with the new changes.
"Our children deserve better, and I originally had the intention of returning, but this recent change tipped the scale toward resignation," Gundy said in a statement. "As much as I have other duties, and I love kids, this is unreasonable. I do not want you to be surprised or blindsided."
As part of the new education standards regarding the teaching of African American history, students will be taught that slavery benefited Black people. The standards prompted Vice President Kamala Harris to visit Jacksonville last Friday, where she spoke against the new curriculum.
"These extremist, so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach if we really are invested in the well-being of our children," Harris said, addressing a crowd of supporters at the Ritz Theater & Museum in the LaVilla neighborhood. "Instead, they dare to push propaganda to our children… Adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother. It involved some of the worse examples of depriving people of humanity in our world. In the context of that, how could anyone suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, there was any benefit to begin subjected to this level of dehumanization?"
Criticism of the new standards didn't stop there. Last Saturday, Duval County school board member Darryl Willie was at the center of a viral post on Twitter, seen holding up a shirt that reads: “SLAVERY DID NOT BENEFIT BLACK PEOPLE."
The post has been viewed by millions of users and hit 83,000 likes on Twitter. Some people are even asking where they can buy the shirt.
“Anytime you have a district like ours where you have over 40% of our students identify as African American,” Willie said, “and then you have standards that don’t align to tell their full history, we could do better. And I think we have to realize that, as a community, as a country.”
Now, Ribault Middle School teacher R.L. Gundy has become the latest public figure to fire back against the standards.
Gundy's letter to the district reads below as follows:
"Effective immediately, I am submitting my resignation as a teacher at Ribault Middle School. The climate of teaching social studies in the State of Florida is hostile, standards are bias and not inclusive of the truth of the American of African descent historical context. In other words, the watered down, tainted and discrimination of “Black History” is wrong. The Black History of slavery in America is no less than a Holocaust. Our children of African descent deserve the truth as a part of America’s history. The governor, the education commissioner, task force and those who wrote this new standard of history should be ashamed of themselves. The premise behind the change in teaching “Black History” in the State of Florida simply does not meet the common sense (intellectual, wisdom, sagacity, logic) test by any standards. Therefore, we must stay “woke” and be open to diversity and inclusiveness of all cultures.
Additionally, the standards are dangerous to social studies teachers because the curriculum, power point presentations, video’s and books are not within the proposed standards and it places a teachers career in jeopardy, causes unnecessary stress and there will always be the questions, is this correct or will I lose my job, teaching certificate or my means of making a living. This is wrong, it is not teaching the truth and our children in Duval County will be harm as a result. We are a nation that is better than this!"