Eighteen organizations and about 250 people attended an anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) rally at the Virginia Beach town center on Thursday afternoon. Key speakers included former GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Bishop E.W. Jackson, former State Senator Dick Black, and Paul Lott, who is running for the GOP nomination for Virginia’s 10th congressional district.
“My name is E.W. Jackson. I am not an African American, I am an American,” Jackson said.
He said, “We patriots are going to have to put an end to this far-left, Marxist Critical Race Theory 1619 Project and declare for all of our children who are in these schools, or the ones that are going to these universities that are going to become nothing but extensions of the influence of communist China and other communist voices, that this nation is and always shall be one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Black said, “If you teach children to despise their classmates for twelve years, you are likely to trigger a racial genocide, and all of history proves it. So [CRT] is not only false, it is dangerous, and it is ultimately deadly.”
Former Virginia Beach City Councilman Robert Dean organized the event. He told The Virginia Star that although school officials have disavowed the presence of CRT, it is still present in schools, and the rally was meant to show the Virginia Beach School Board how the local community feels about CRT.
“All [the rally] focused on was we do not want to destroy the City of Virginia Beach public school system, we do not want to destroy our children, we don’t want to destroy this Commonwealth of Virginia, and we certainly do not want to destroy our constitutional republic,” Dean said. “We don’t want any, any part of CRT, or any other subtle name that they’ve been using to try to get their feet in the door in the curriculum.”
GOP candidate for Virginia’s 83rd House of Delegates district Tim Anderson also spoke at the event. After the rally he told The Star, “It was important for me to stand with citizens to let them know their voices will not be marginalized any longer. Parents have legitimate concerns that are being ignored by the school board, Department of Education, and other elected representatives. Parents are frustrated.”
He said, “There are ways to solve problems. But just ignoring and discounting parents is not the way to bring solutions to the issues. Ultimately, schools are supposed to teach children how to think, not what to think. So many parents are concerned that education is being replaced by indoctrination in the public schools. This is something we must recognize, address, and find meaningful solutions for. We do this by first making sure people are heard.”
At the rally, Lott said, “I’m a former president of the Harvard Black Alumni Association, so I’ve been immersed in [CRT] for quite some time and all of its tenets,” Lott said. “[CRT] is not evidenced based, and it’s not based in fact. [CRT] is simply a method of taking a point of view, a lens, and applying it to a situation.”
Lott said State Senator Steve Newman (R-Bedford) had asked Lott to submit draft legislation for a parents’ rights anti-CRT act. “I will submit that document tomorrow. The Senator’s office will draft it over the weekend, and it will be submitted to the Senate on Monday morning. So, from there we have the tool to fight this,” Lott said.
“In the meantime, you’re going to have to do something you don’t want to do,” Lott said. “You are going to have to commit acts of civil disobedience. If you’re on the school board, you’re going to have to refuse to implement it. If you’re a teacher, you’re going to have to refuse to implement it. Parents, you need to send notes to school with those teachers, telling them that they cannot put this in your classroom. And we have to hold the line until we can get this egregious law reversed in the Virginia legislature.”
– – –
Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and the Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
