A cotton field planted at a Hollywood school to teach the horrors of slavery has traumatized an African-American student, according to lawsuits filed in California.
Rashunda Pitts, who claims the episode caused her daughter emotional distress, is seeking $250,000 in damages.
“She has uncontrollable anxiety attacks and ... experiences depressive episodes when she thinks about the cotton harvest project
,” according to the complaint filed this week against the school district.
The cotton fields, where slaves were forced to work in appalling conditions, remain a defining symbol of this period in United States history.
The student, identified only by the initials SW, began studying at Laurel Span School in Hollywood in late 2017. From an enthusiastic start, SW, now 17, had grown more sullen and tired, relates the document.
Soon after, as Rashunda Pitts was dropping her daughter off at school, she noticed cotton fields on campus.
An “insensitive” project
“Bewildered that a cotton field is growing in Hollywood, all the more so on public school grounds
,” she had asked to speak to management, according to the complaint.
He was told that the children in his daughter's class read the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, a famous black abolitionist, and that
"picking cotton was one of the experiences he talked about."
The school official she spoke to then allegedly explained that the field had been planted to give younger children an idea of what the slaves were forced to do.
“Totally revolted by the idea of the school asking her daughter and other children to harvest cotton as part of a school exercise to identify with the reality of African-American slaves, Rashunda Pitts had expressed his disappointment and his pain”
in the face of an
“insensitive”
project , can we read in the complaint.
According to the document, the school did not seek permission from the parents and did not inform them of this project in advance.
Also according to the same source, the Los Angeles Unified School District, which oversees the school, said in a statement that it regretted that an
“educational activity
” was deemed insensitive.
"When school officials were made aware of a parent's concern about the cotton field, they responded immediately by removing it,"
the school district said.
In a statement to AFP, a spokesperson said the school district
"usually does not comment on pending or anticipated litigation."
