Black Folks Who Were Touted by Florida as Benefiting From Slavery Weren’t Enslaved

A report by the Tampa Bay Times has exposed just how flawed Florida’s new education policy about teaching slavery—that it somehow may have benefited some Black people—really is, with nearly half of the examples provided by the state having never been enslaved at all. The Times reports that the state listed 16 names when pressed to provide proof of how slavery may have benefitted Black people, but the examples were shoddy at best. A museum dedicated to Lewis Latimer, a man touted by Florida education officials as an example, says he was born to free, self-liberated parents in 1848 before he went on to be an inventor that worked on the development of the telephone. The Museum of the American Revolution described James Forten, another example cited by the state, as a Black entrepreneur born to free parents. Henry Blair, Paul Cuffe and John Chavis were other examples provided by Florida, despite them being born free.