Michael James wanted to inspire his students with images of leaders they could identify with. One day he returned to his classroom to find that a district employee had removed posters of Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Colin Powell, and other black heroes. James was told the images were age-inappropriate and had been stripped from his bulletin board.
Michael James was sickened by this ridiculous claim and quit. The school district superintendent says this was an "anomaly" but somehow allowed to reach the point where a teacher quit.
An Escambia County public school teacher resigned this week over what he characterized as racist behavior by a school district employee.
The teacher, Michael James, emailed a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis and Escambia County Superintendent Tim Smith in which he wrote that a district employee removed pictures of historic Black American heroes from his classroom walls, citing the images as being "age inappropriate."
Images that were removed from the bulletin board at O.J. Semmes Elementary School included depictions of Martin Luther King Jr., Harriett Tubman, Colin Powell and George Washington Carver, James said.
