CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Local activists and civil rights groups came together Saturday at TAMU-CC’s Hector P. Garcia Plaza to protest Senate Bill 3at the “Our History Won’t Be Erased” rally.
They argued that the bill is preventing schools from teaching about historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Caesar Chavez, and Susan B. Anthony.
President of the Corpus Christi chapter of the NAACP Jeremy Coleman said he was angered by the bill and said the NAACP will be pushing legislators not to pass the bill.
“I plan on, and the NAACP, we will be going to Austin so that they know there’s a presence. They cannot eliminate and just wipe out history,” Coleman said.
The organizer of the event and president of one of the Corpus Christi chapters of LULAC Para Todos, Eric Holguin, said he put together the event because it’s important to have a public voice about the bill.
“We learn about so many, essentially white people and what they have done in Texas. Why can’t we learn about more than one Hispanic figure? Why can’t we learn more about one or two Black people that were significant in the Civil Rights movement? We don’t have to pick and choose or have only one person in place when it comes to this. We could teach a lot of this and we could teach all of this,” Holguin said.
However, his requests are similar to what the Bill mandates, requiring public school grades K through 12 to teach about the importance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 13th Amendment, which freed slaves.
Other local leaders like Nancy Vera, the president of the Corpus Christi chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, said Hispanic and female history isn’t taught enough in Nueces County.
“The Corpus Christi American Federation of Teachers, we are calling for a commission, we are calling for organizations to come together to write curriculum to present to teachers so that teachers will know more about our history,” Vera said.
However, the bill does mandate that schools teach about the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote and to teach about the diversity of the Hispanic population.
Sylvia Campos attended the rally and said there is a disconnect between the legislators and groups of people that want to share their history.
“We think that we’re not being heard but it does matter. Your text, your call, your email matters,” Campos said.
