Florida Daycare Faces Backlash After Two-Year-Old Black Child Allegedly ‘Handcuffed And Fingerprinted’ In Rosa Parks Reenactment

Google Photos By Melissa Noel ·Updated December 21, 2023

A daycare in Florida is facing major backlash after a white child pretending to be a cop handcuffed and fingerprinted a Black 2-year-old girl as part of a reenactment of the arrest of civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

Earlier this month, the NAACP called for the state to investigate the Building Brains Academy in Saint Cloud, where it says the child was “subject to an alarming act of simulation, where she was handcuffed and fingerprinted by a white peer.”

The civil rights organization added that “the gravity of this incident extends beyond the immediate parties involved, reflecting a broader issue of mishandling and suppressing Black history education in Florida.”

The child’s parents learned about the incident after images were shared with them through the school’s app, according to FOX 35.

“Her hands restrained behind her back as if she was being taken into custody,” the incensed couple told the outlet of their daughter, who they believe is the only Black child at the daycare.

“Then the next image was her hands being placed on a table as if she was being booked,” added the parents, who did not want to be identified. “The look on her face alone, it was horrific.”

Images of the girl appearing to be fingerprinted were shared online on Facebook.

ESSENCE will not repost the photos.

“I was just like, ‘There’s no way they’re doing this in a 2-year-old classroom,'” the girl’s dad told local news outlet WESH News. “It was our daughter who had her hands restrained behind her back by another child wearing a police vest,” he said.

“What I keep reliving in my mind is the look on our daughter’s face.”

The child’s parents quickly removed their daughter from the center, where the mother said she spoke with the director.

“There are a million ways to teach about Rosa Parks that are age-appropriate and doesn’t come from a child’s expense,” the mom said of Parks, who is known as “the first lady of civil rights” after her arrest in Alabama in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger.

The daycare claimed that “the photographs shared do not offer a complete or accurate representation of the full lesson about the importance of equal rights.”

“One of the classes in our multicultural school was learning about the legacy of Rosa Parks and the importance of treating each other with respect and equality,” the school said in a statement.

“In the spirit of the moment, the class spontaneously decided to act out the elements of Ms. Parks’ story, including her arrest for refusing to give up her seat at the front of the bus,” it said.

The statement said the “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.”

“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,” it read.

“We deeply regret the assumption that our teachers, our leadership, or our administration would in any way choose to make a child feel uncomfortable or negatively singled out,” the statement added.

The daycare said it has “advised all of our faculty that any deviations from the approved curriculum, no matter how slight or unplanned, must first be approved by the school administration. We will continue ensuring our students are exposed to a curriculum that celebrates equality and diversity.”

The child’s father told WESH that “restraining is restraining. You know our daughter’s hands were behind her back. The child that was restraining our daughter was in a police uniform.”

These concerned parents reached out to the NAACP and asked for a change to the curriculum. The civil rights group has urged Building Brains Academy to discontinue such activities immediately, called for a formal apology to the family and also said that it “will explore all legal avenues to ensure this grave matter is dealt with and not repeated.”