Change.org - Tell lawmakers: Don't eliminate minority history

We changed the world this summer when you helped Opal Lee convince President Biden to make Juneteenth a national holiday! Because of your support, millions more people around the country and the world know the story of the day Black people in Texas actually first became free. But now, as many people expected, some lawmakers are fighting back.  Siddhanth, a high school student from Houston is desperately trying to fight against Texas SB 3 and HB 28, which are currently up for a vote. He started a petition to make sure Texas lawmakers don’t eliminate minority history—the very history we worked so hard to honor by making Juneteenth a holiday—from the curriculum of schools around the state. Many of the same lawmakers who recently supported making Juneteenth a national holiday now want to keep the history of Juneteenth out of Texas classrooms. The proposed bills eliminate any requirement for teachers to cover topics including “The history of Native Americans,” and “Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.” PLEASE, don’t let what you and Opal Lee accomplished this summer be undone while no one is watching. Sign Siddhanth’s petition to tell the Texas Legislature that we will not stand by while they whitewash history. These bills literally take the current curriculum requirements and cross out the words “the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong.” How can students learn about Juneteenth if they can’t learn about how slavery was wrong? We can’t stand by and watch this happen after all we’ve fought for so far.  Ms. Opal Lee wants to know: Will you sign Siddhanth’s petition today?

Sign the petition