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Republicans name Kamala Harris in new slavery bill

January 4, 2024 | | Print Article

Florida state legislators are being accused of “trolling” Vice President Kamala Harris with a new slavery education bill.

“Florida Republicans troll Kamala Harris with slavery education bill,” Florida Politics’ headline reads, adding that “the bill title targets the current Vice President of the United States.”

Dubbed the “Kamala Harris Truth in Slavery Teaching Act,” HB 1139, introduced on Wednesday by state Rep. Kiyan Michael (R-Jacksonville) “includes required details about which political parties supported and opposed the practice of slavery, which ones enacted discriminatory policies following the end of slavery and the instrumental voices that fought for civil rights in the many years afterwards,” according to Florida’s Voice.

State Senator Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill) filed the companion bill, SB 1192.

“Like most Black Americans, I was raised never knowing the truth that the Democrat Party was the party of fighting for, and keeping slavery, and the reason for the formation of the Republican Party was to abolish it,” Rep. Michael said in a press release about the filing. “It is a valuable, yet hidden, piece of our American history. This bill will bring forth these truths and expose the political party’s roles regarding the heinous institution of slavery.”

“Recently, in Jacksonville, Vice President Kamala Harris commented regarding Florida’s African-American history education standards saying: ‘When we send our children to school, as parents, we want to know that they’re being taught the truth,'” Ingoglia noted in the press release. “I wholeheartedly agree.”

“That is why,” he said, “it is vitally important, and historically accurate, to include that the Democrat Party not only fought for the continued abomination that was slavery, but they also adopted pro-slavery resolutions and tenets into their official party platform.”

As BizPac Review reported, Harris was blasted over the summer for lying about Florida’s new African-American history curriculum, claiming it teaches that slavery was good for some slaves.

Dr. William Allen, a former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a professor emeritus at Michigan State University, helped to craft the state’s standards.

He called the vice president’s claim “categorically false.”

“It was never said that slavery was beneficial to Africans,” he told ABC News at the time.

Appearing on Fox News’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Allen said, “This curriculum is devoted to telling the truth, whereas Kamala Harris has retailed a lie.”

Harris headed for Jacksonville, Florida, where she doubled down on her claim that “in the State of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”

“Extremists here in Florida passed a law, ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ trying to instill fear in our teachers that they should not live their full life and love who they love,” Harris said during her Jacksonville remarks. “And now, on top of all of that, they want to replace history with lies. Middle school students in Florida to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”

“Now, it may only have been a falsehood the first time she stated it,” Allen told host Jesse Watters. “But when you repeat a falsehood, it becomes a lie.”

“They have an agenda,” he explained. “And they only want slavery to be told from a certain perspective.”

Melissa Fine
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