Dr. Corrie Davis is outraged that the principal at Big Shanty Elementary School in Kennesaw, Ga., doesn’t have a problem with students reenacting slavery on the school’s “Civil War Day.” Students were encouraged to dress up as historically-accurate characters and, because her son is Black, Davis’s son was treated like a slave. Teachers defend the exercise saying that it teaches the students empathy. Davis says that the experience was traumatizing.

A Traumatizing Experience

In a now-viral Facebook video, Davis shared her reactions to the meeting she had with school officials. She expressed her frustrations with the notion that although costumes were optional, students and parents were urged to make them as realistic as possible. Therefore, it was assumed that Black children would be slaves and White children would be slave masters. Her son did not dress up, but that didn’t stop a White child from saying to him, “You are my slave.”

“What I want them to understand is the pain it caused my son,” Davis told the Houston Chronicle. “This is bringing them back to a time when people were murdered, when people died, when people owned people.”

https://www.facebook.com/corrie.davis1/posts/1638673352863440

School Officials Are In Favor Of The Exercise

In the meeting attended by Davis and her son’s father who had written a letter to the school, Davis was generally ignored by the principal. The doting mother is a professor at Kennesaw State University who teaches early childhood education, research, and diversity. She isn’t just some angry Black woman. Davis can offer real solutions that will meet state curriculum requirements without harming children emotionally and psychologically. The school didn’t want her input. For them, it was all about the attire as opposed to the effect of the exercise.

“No student was required to dress in period attire and any student that did was not instructed, nor required, to dress in any specific attire,” school spokesman John Stratford said in a statement.

Not On Her Watch

But that’s just not good enough for Corrie Davis. The principal told her that the lesson would be taught at a lower grade level starting next school year, but would not promise that the role play would be taken out of the lesson. The area superintendent, however, assures her that the costuming will be discontinued and that the principal would be reprimanded.

Davis says she will fight to make sure that no other child has to suffer the same hurt and humiliation that her son did. She will be an example to her son of how to fight racial injustice.

“One thing he will see is his mom out here telling people how wrong this is,” Davis told WGCL-TV. “He’ll see that I’m not sitting in the background.”

https://youtu.be/95P2etYpbfs

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This was the comment that 39-year-old Christopher Smith made when WMBF in Myrtle Beach interviewed him about his lawsuit against his former manager. Smith had filed a civil lawsuit back in 2015 against Bobby Paul Edwards, 52, and Bobby’s brother Ernest, who owns J&J Cafeteria. The former employee alleged that the two men enslaved him, discriminated against him, and violated multiple labor laws during the time he worked for them.

The Grand Jury Indictment

Edwards, 52, was arrested this week and pleaded not guilty in open court on Wednesday, shortly after prosecutors announced the indictment, records show.

Apparently there is evidence to support Smith’s allegations because Bobby was just indicted by a South Carolina federal grand jury for forced labor, among other charges. Smith, a mentally-challenged Black man, was only 12 years old when he first started working for J&J. But for a five year period of time between 2009 and 2014, he was forced to work seven days a week, 18 hours a day, and was denied meals and breaks. Bobby was said to be verbally and physically abusive. The full title of the charge is “attempt to establish peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude or human trafficking.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BaKHzSklXy7/?hl=en&tagged=bobbypauledwards

Inhumane Treatment

Smith said that Bobby scalded him with tongs dipped in hot grease and beat him with the buckled end of a belt. He also withheld some $30,000 in wages, denied Smith any paid sick or vacation time, called him racial slurs, threatened him with serious injury, and forced him to live in a filthy, roach-infested apartment that Bobby owned which was located behind the restaurant. Bobby and Ernest never reported more than $1,000 in earnings per quarter for Smith in spite of working him so many hours that he would have to be carried home and fed.

Bobby reportedly used fear and intimidation to keep other employees in line and silent about Smith’s plight. It was the mother-in-law of one of J&J’s waitresses, Genean Caines, who alerted authorities in October 2014. Smith was rescued and placed in the custody of South Carolina’s adult Protective services. The investigation and lawsuit ensued.

If Bobby Edwards is found guilty of the charges against him, he could serve up to 20 years in prison and owe $250,000 in fines plus restitution to Smith. It still wouldn’t be enough to erase the emotional and psychological scars.

The post White Restaurant Manager Arrested And Charged With Slavery, Here’s What He Did To Black Employee appeared first on I Love Old School Music.