Band alumni to protest after request to reincorporate conventional Black marching type was declined

Eastside Excessive Faculty’s band used to march within the type of traditionally Black schools and universities, like Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College and Bethune-Cookman, starting underneath its first director Richard Parker.

This summer time, alumni band members made a proper request to high school officers to reincorporate parts of the normal HBCU type into the varsity band’s present corps type, with the intention to appeal to extra Black college students again to this system.

Faculty administration declined their request.

The band itself has a wealthy historical past tracing again to integration, and used to replicate the varsity and the neighborhoods that encompass it. Black and white college students participated in roughly equal numbers.

The band made a last swap away from HBCU-style marching to corps-style marching in 2007. The change was marked by many as a big loss to Gainesville and the encircling communities.

Right this moment, the band is generally non-Black college students, regardless of being at a majority Black college.

To know why the shift in band type is critical, and why alumni band members are adamant about bringing the custom again, hearken to the WUFT audio documentary under, or learn: How a Black marching band style was erased from Gainesville’s fields, and why it matters decades later.

Protest organizers mentioned “the motion is larger than the music.”

They purpose to lift take a look at scores and reduce self-discipline referrals by partaking Black college students in band once more, and to “maintain college students off the streets by placing devices into their fingers as a substitute of weapons.”

In response, present band director Joseph Hughes proposed a joint efficiency with the alumni band – one thing they’ve performed prior to now – however he didn’t handle their request to reincorporate the HBCU type.

Principal Leroy Williams mentioned the varsity can be shifting ahead with Hughes’ proposal, and declined – for each himself and Hughes – to touch upon the explanations for refusing the request and the challenges it presents.

“We’re not taken with talking with you at the moment as we’re making ready for the varsity 12 months,” Williams informed WUFT. “We’re not contemplating another proposals at the moment.”

Black and white alumni band members alike mentioned the refusal to reincorporate the HBCU type is valuing white tradition over Black tradition, to the detriment of the scholars at Eastside Excessive.

As a result of working straight with the varsity hasn’t labored, they mentioned, organizers at the moment are inviting the neighborhood to protest in entrance of the administration workplace on Tuesday, Aug. 16, at 5 p.m.