Black 2-year-old handcuffed as Florida day care reenacts Rosa Parksâ arrest

A Black 2-year-old attending a Florida day care was handcuffed and fingerprinted by a white student peer during a “racist” reenactment of Rosa Parks’ arrest, the NAACP said.

In letters written on Dec. 12 to the Florida Department of Children and Families and Building Brains Academy in St. Cloud, Florida, the NAACP says a toddler was subjected to “psychological harm” when they were involved in a historical role-play.

A 2-year-old girl, who is Black, was put in the role of Rosa Parks, and was handcuffed and then fingerprinted by her white peers to represent Parks’ arrest from a Montgomery bus after refusing to give up her seat to a white man in 1955, according to the NAACP.

McClatchy News reached out to the school and the Department of Children and Families for more information and is waiting for a response.

The girl’s parents sent photos of their daughter to the NAACP “as evidence that this activity occurred as described,” the organization said in the letter, which were described as “disturbing.”

Now, the organization is calling upon the school to apologize to the families of its students and make changes to the curriculum that included the Rosa Parks role-play.

“We consider the activity an inappropriate trivialization of a significant historical event, insensitive to the struggles against segregation, and psychologically harmful to all students involved, especially Black students reenacting such a traumatic moment in American history,” the NAACP said in the letter to Building Brains Academy.

The lesson is part of a greater movement in Florida to “suppress and rewrite Black history,” the NAACP said in a statement accompanying the letters.

“The portrayal of Rosa Parks should be a source of empathy, not a means to inflict pain. The Florida NAACP State Conference vehemently denounces this act,” NAACP Florida State Conference President Adora Nweze said in the release. “Our educational institutions must commit to inclusive and accurate historical representations and teachings that preserve the emotional well-being of all students.”

The organization also said Building Brains Academy has not issued an apology for the lesson or shown “any willingness to revise its contentious curriculum.”

In a statement from the day care given to WOFL, the school said the reenactment had been “spontaneous” and “in the spirit of the moment.”

“Unfortunately, the photographs shared do not offer a complete or accurate representation of the full lesson about the importance of equal rights. Our school believes in and teaches the importance of equality, of standing up for our rights, and of speaking up when we see something isn’t right,” the school told the outlet. “We teach these lessons not to celebrate the wrongdoings of others in the past, but to encourage our children to prevent such actions in the future.”

In the statement, the school did not say if there would be any changes to its curriculum.

St. Cloud is about 30 miles south of Orlando.