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Arkansas girl, 6, kicked out of Christian daycare center for wearing Black Lives Matter shirt, claims mother

Journei had been attending the pre-school for six months and wore a white shirt that read, “All lives can't matter until black lives matter”

RUSSELLVILLE, ARKANSAS: A six-year-old girl was kicked out of a Christain daycare center for wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt, her mother has claimed. Journei, who was a student of Russellville pre-school, His Kids Learning Center, for six months wore a white shirt last Thursday, June 25, that read, “All lives can't matter until black lives matter”. However, when the child went to the school wearing the same shirt, her mother Deval Brockman received a call later. “She was like, ‘I don't like it, I don't agree with it, and I would prefer it if you didn't send her to school in it again’,” Brockman said. The mother said that she then raised the issue with state officials who said that her daughter can wear shirts like that as long as they did not contain profanity. “If I’m supporting something, I’m going to wear it, my child is going to wear it, to help say that our voice needs to be heard,” she added.

Brockman sent Journei to the pre-school the following day, June 26, Friday. That day the little girl wore another shirt on which a raised fist was painted in the back. However, when the mother went to pick-up Journei from the center she was told she did not need to send her child back to school from tomorrow. “I was really upset. It's a T-shirt! There's no profanity. It's just stating the truth, stating facts,” Brockman told New York Daily News. “They kept saying, ‘It’s racist. You’re teaching your kid there’s color’. Well, there is color. If they can’t see that, they’ll never understand. But it’s something they need to know.”

While the school's director Patricia Brown said in a statement to KARK 4 that they “feel a childcare environment is not a place for a parent's political views to be addressed or played out, regardless of race.” However, Brockman has insisted that the shirts and their messages were not political and applicable to “everyday life”. “It’s not political, it’s everyday life, It’s all over the news. Right is right and wrong is wrong. If you're going to a Christian led daycare, let's abide by the bible then,” she added.

Brockman said the incident has left her daughter sad as she was not able to go back to the school or meet her friends there. However, the family has reportedly assured her that it was not her fault. “She got really upset and started crying that she couldn’t see her friends and teachers anymore. I had to tell her she didn’t do anything wrong,” Brockman said.

The recent Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations have started following the May 25 death of George Floyd, who died after a former Minneapolis officer allegedly knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Thousands have come out on the street in the US to protest against racism and police brutality.

Meanwhile, an eight-year-old boy, Nolan Davis, in Missouri organized a Black Lives Matter march for children, which was attended by hundreds. "I'm worried about Black people, like me, getting hurt. Some skin is like chocolate. Some is like vanilla. Some is mixed together like mine. But we're all people. Even though I'm a kid, it's important to speak my voice so people can hear me and know they can share their voice too, just like me,” Davis said through a megaphone at the start of the march.