The NAACP is the latest organization to issue a travel advisory in Florida, warning that conservative policies have made it an « openly hostile » state.
Over the past year, conservative policies touching on education, immigration and LGBTQ+ rights in Florida have led some advocacy groups and organizations to recommend that visitors reconsider their travels to the state.
On Saturday, the NAACP became the latest to issue a travel advisory to the Sunshine State, warning that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools” have turned the state into an “openly hostile” place for people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color,” the NAACP advisory reads.
A spokesperson for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Responding to the NAACP warning on Saturday, the governor’s press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, tweeted a GIF of DeSantis saying: “This is a stunt. If you want to waste your time on a stunt, that’s fine. But I’m not wasting my time on your stunts. Okay?”
The NAACP’s advisory comes four months after Florida rejected the College Board’s new Advanced Placement course in African American studies — a part of DeSantis’s long-running war on what he calls “woke ideology” infiltrating schools. Since 2021, DeSantis has urged restrictions on how Black history is taught. Last year, he signed a law banning critical race theory in public schools. (Critical race theory is an academic framework focused on the idea that racial inequality is systemically interwoven in American society, legal systems and institutions.)
NAACP President and chief executive Derrick Johnson framed those policies as an act of erasure.
“Failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all,” Johnson said in a news release.
