By John Kirtley

The Rev. H.K. Matthews passed away Monday at the age of 97. As I urge you to read in this obituary, he was one of the towering figures in the Florida civil rights movement.

He was arrested over 30 times fighting for equal rights in Northwest Florida. He was beaten, along with John Lewis and other brave activists, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in their first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery. There is now a park named in his honor in Pensacola. You can also read his autobiography, “Victory After The Fall.”.

On a 2010 visit to Pensacola to recruit schools for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program, former Step Up For Students grassroots organizer Michael Benjamin and I met the operator of a faith-based school in town. He urged us to meet with Rev. Matthews, who he thought might respond well to the social justice message of the scholarship program. At the time, the average household income of our students was less than $30,000, and 75% were minorities. Michael and I said we would love to meet him.

Rev. Matthews didn’t say much during our initial visit; Michael and I explained how the scholarship program empowered low-income families to choose a different school if the one they were assigned to wasn’t working for them. He seemed to just take it all in but offered neither affirmation nor disagreement.

Almost as an afterthought, I invited him to a march and rally we were having the next month in Tallahassee. We needed the legislature to pass a bill to expand the scholarship program to relieve our waitlist, and we asked scholarship families to come to the Capitol to show their support. To my surprise, he agreed to attend.

On that day, over 6,000 people marched from the convention center to the Capitol. I invited Rev. Matthews to walk in front of the crowd with other faith leaders. Normally I would never walk in the front row, but I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly for him. He was very quiet as the huge crowd marched.

When we had gathered for the rally in the Capitol, I placed him in a prominent seat on the stage. A few minutes into the event, he motioned me over and asked if he could speak to the crowd. I had no idea what he was going to say, but I wasn’t going to say no. I went to the minister running our show and asked him to introduce Rev. Matthews.

What would he say? Was he with us?

I soon had my answer.

“This reminds me of the old movement,” he said. “Seeing thousands walking in the streets, fighting for the right to determine their own future, to fight for what is best for their children. When I worked with Dr. King back in the day …”

When he said those words, there was a murmur in the crowd, both students and adults. These kids had read about Dr. King in their history books. Some of them knew that there were not one but two marches across the Pettus Bridge, and here was someone who was there at the first attempt, someone who took the blows.

He was indeed with us.

Immediately after the rally, Rev. Matthews was swarmed by students young and old, some asking questions about his time with Dr. King, some young ones who just wanted to touch him — I suppose just to make sure this hero was real. They did not let him go for at least 20 minutes.

I could tell at the time this moved him. He told me so later. After that day he would call me to ask if there was anything he could do to help the movement. We had him appear at events with donors, governors, and legislators.

He would lead another march for us in 2016, when over 10,000 people came to protest the lawsuit filed by the Florida teachers union demanding that the courts shut down the Tax Credit Scholarship, which would evict 80,000 poor kids from their schools. That day Rev. Matthews was joined at the front of the procession by Martin Luther King III, the son of the man Matthews marched with 50 years prior. You can watch a 60-second video of that march here.

I had the pleasure of joining him at his church in Brewton, Alabama, where he moved in later years. He was being honored for his years of service to that church. I was honored, though very surprised, when he called me up to speak that day. Luckily, the words to praise him came easily.

They come again easily today, but not without a few tears.

How fortunate I was to have my life intersect with his, however unlikely that would have been to me before this movement changed the course of my life.

How fortunate the education freedom movement was to have his blessing and his involvement.

How fortunate the state of Florida was to have his tireless efforts fighting for civil rights.

How fortunate, all.

Rest in peace, Rev. Matthews.

John Kirtley is founder and chairman of Step Up For Students.

Over at the Education Next blog, Rick Hess has an interview with Liz Fagen, the superintendent of Douglas County schools in Colorado. We've written about Douglas County before because it's the district where, amazingly enough, the school board voted in a voucher program last year (though it's now tied up in court). The Hess interview is worth a read not only because it points out other ways Douglas County is pushing the envelope, but because of the contrast Fagen offers to other suburban superintendents.

Douglas isn't too different from, say, Seminole County in Florida. Douglas is a well-to-do district on the outskirts of Denver. Seminole is an affluent district outside Orlando. Both have about 60,000 students. Both have good reputations. Both have plenty of satisfied parents.

But when it comes to attitudes about school choice, the districts are night and day. (more…)

They hold public schools in contempt. They think private schools are better. They want to privatize everything. Supporters of school choice, including vouchers and tax-credit scholarships, have long been defined by cartoonish stereotypes. And as a former education reporter for one of the biggest newspapers in the country, I know how hard it is to redefine story lines that are so set in stone, it doesn't matter how overwhelming the evidence is to the contrary.

Glenton "Glen" Gilzean Jr., the newest school board member in Pinellas County, Florida, the seventh biggest school district in Florida and the 24th biggest in the country, has a rare opportunity to chip away at those perceptions.

Appointed last month by Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Gilzean, 29, openly supports vouchers and tax-credit scholarships for low-income children, which makes him as rare among school board members as a mouse at a cat convention. We can't think of another sitting school board member in Florida who so openly supports private school choice options.

Believing that such options hold promise, of course, does not in any way mean easing up on other efforts to improve outcomes for children within public schools. For many school choice supporters, it has never been either/or. Gilzean can show that in coming months as he weighs in on all kinds of decisions affecting a sprawling district of 101,000 students. (more…)