The principal refuses to allow the first vice-major black to make a speech, then the mayor of Rochester intervenes

When Jaissaan Lovett graduated last month as the first black vice-major of his high school, he prepared a speech – but he says his principal would not let him give it away. Then someone else intervened who wanted to hear what he had to say: the Mayor of Rochester, New York, Lovely Warren. Not only that, she gave him a much wider audience for his message.

Lovett, a new graduate of the School of the Preparatory Charter of the University of Rochester for Young Men, planned to encourage his classmates and thank his parents. the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspaper. He also admitted having already had trouble with the protest against the students.

Lovett said that he had never been asked to give an end-of-school lecture, even though the elders learned, according to the newspaper. When he asked to speak anyway, he said that the director, Joseph Munno, said no.

"He did not want to see the speech or what he said, nothing," Lovett told the Democrat and the Chronicle. "He just said no." According to the newspaper, Munno refused to comment

. Mayor Warren invited Lovett, who works in his office as an intern, to deliver the speech at City Hall. She then posted it on her YouTube channel and on her Facebook page.

"Unfortunately, the Jaisaan School did not allow him to deliver his preacher speech," Warren said in the video. "For whatever reason, his school – in a country where freedom of speech is a constitutional right, and the city of Frederick Douglass – has turned his moment of triumph into a time of sadness and pain." Jaisaan will never go high school again. He will never come back on this moment. This is not the time to punish a child because you may not like what he has to say. "

Lovett had his own message for his director too.

" I am here as a major of the UPrep 2018 you that you could not break me. I'm still here, and I'm still here, strong, "says Lovett in the video" And after all these years, all this anger I've had towards you and UPrep as a whole, I realized that I had to leave that "

The school board of directors responded to the controversy in a Facebook post saying that they were" aware of the concern "and that they were" uncomfortable ". he was going to "review the circumstances of what had happened". They wished Lovett "a lot of success while he continues his studies at Clark Atlanta University, where he will complete studies, according to the Democrat and Chronicle."

UPrep, an all-male school serving grades 7-12, is One of Rochester's best-regarded charter schools, according to the Democrat and Chronicle, with annual graduation rates well above 90 percent.