John: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is defending his state’s new school curriculum standards, which will teach children that slavery provided a “personal benefit” to enslaved African Americans.

DeSantis’ efforts to whitewash our country’s history are part of a larger agenda designed to set people against each other and cheat our children out of a good, honest education. And John -- this won’t stop in Florida. As a GOP presidential hopeful, DeSantis intends to take his agenda nationwide.

In 2019, my daughter Jennifer and I went to Ghana and commemorated 400 years since Black people were forcibly taken from Africa and enslaved in America. We stood silently, hand in hand, in the “door of no return.”

With few exceptions, white people came to this country willingly in search of a new world, full of liberty and justice for all. With few exceptions, Black people came to this country against their will -- chained, shackled, and stripped of their identities. They came to these shores enslaved and stayed that way for 244 years.

And yet, DeSantis suggests that experience was beneficial to African Americans.

As a former history teacher, I often quote George Santayana’s admonition: “Those who do not remember past lessons are condemned to repeat them.” We shouldn’t be running from our history. We should be learning and growing from it. 

But I worry people like DeSantis and Trump will take us backward with these types of racist, divisive policies. So long as they have power, they’re going to keep chipping away at our democracy. Our civil rights. Our freedoms. 

That’s why it is critical that we win upcoming elections. The next several months will determine if we go backward or forward. If we’re going to chart our path forward, then we all need to get involved in whatever ways we can -- whether that’s voting, volunteering, donating, or something else. 

You can start by adding your name to mine and committing to get involved in 2024 to defeat Republicans like DeSantis and their divisive agendas at the ballot box.

What I’m asking of you today is a small action, John, but when we all do it, it adds up to a powerful movement. And that’s what we’ll need to win next November.

Thank you,

Jim