A crowd of about 100 people gathered at Greater Bethel AME Church in East Gainesville Thursday evening for a community forum discussing Alachua’s racial literacy gap amid the school board’s ongoing search for a new superintendent. The roughly two-hour forum concluded with organizers acknowledging the need for further discussion.
The forum was titled “Why is Our School System Failing Our Children?” and was sponsored in part by the Alachua County Community Remembrance Project. Founded in 2018 by the board of county commissioners in partnership with the Montgomery, Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative, the organization exists to research and commemorate the history of racial violence in Alachua County.
The event’s press release said the group is dedicated to fostering truth and reconciliation amid the ongoing legacy of the Jim Crow era…