This week on Florida Matters, we talk with Goliath Davis III, a columnist for the Weekly Challenger, about the controversy over the film "Ruby Bridges" after a Pinellas County parent complained about the film being shown to second graders.
The film is based on the story of a 6-year-old girl’s experience of integration in New Orleans during the 1960s.
Parents at the school were told they could opt out of having their child watch the movie during a screening as part of Black History Month. Two parents opted out and one wrote a formal complaint that the movie was inappropriate to be shown to second-graders.
The complaint — and reports that the movie had been banned at the school — sparked an outcry from the community.
After a school board review committee reviewed a complaint about the movie from the parent, the school district decided to continue showing the movie as part of Pinellas County Schools’ curriculum.
Davis addressed the controversy in a series of columns for the Weekly Challenger, a newspaper covering Tampa Bay’s African American communities. He told WUSF his column was based on some miscommunication from the school district but he stands by what he wrote and says in his view the film was banned before the ban was lifted.
Davis was the city of St. Petersburg’s first African American police chief. He retired after 28 years in the police department, and was appointed deputy mayor, and later senior administrator for community advancement. Davis was fired in 2011 for failing to attend the funerals of three police officers killed in the line of duty.
Host Matthew Peddie also talked to Davis about his experience learning Black history as a child, in both segregated and integrated schools, joining the police during a push to recruit more Black police officers, and today’s battles over cultural issues and education.
You can listen to the full conversation by clicking on the “Listen” button above. Or you can listen on the WUSF app under “Programs & Podcasts.
