Transformations Towards Truth: The Need for Preserving AP African American Studies
Dr. Martin Luther King, Mrs. King, and David Abernathy leading the March on Selma in 1965, accompanied by Abernathy’s children. Photo by GPA Photo Archive.
After decades of student advocacy, College Board has finally produced an Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies Course. While some see this course as the necessary inclusion of Black history in school curriculums, conservatives have sought to preserve the white-washed account of history that has defined our country for centuries. Following Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s threat to ban the course due to its hidden “political agenda,” College Board restructured the program. The new framework has removed concepts like Black Lives Matter, critical race theory, intersectionality, Black queer theory, and other lessons that are foundational for a course designed to teach about the Black diaspora. Although the struggle for AP African American Studies continues in Florida and across the country, it is clear that the rejection of this course is not rooted in a desire to maintain patriotism, but rather the fear of what an Afrocentric education could create. The legitimization of the Black perspective in education through the inclusion of the AP African American Studies Course will help make Blackness central to everyone’s understanding of American democracy, or rather the lack of democracy entirely.
Though hot topics like AP African American Studies and critical race theory (CRT) make the issue of telling history seem like a recent development, the Black community has fought to preserve and uplift its history for generations. During Jim Crow segregation, the assumption amongst most Americans was that, “Black people either had no past—or one not worth studying—or that our history began at enslavement.” To counter this fallacious narrative, Black educators in the South worked to subtly introduce Black history into their curriculums. Carter G Woodson’s “Negro History Week,” which later became Black History Month, was utilized by Black educators to expose their students to their own history.
The work of uplifting Black history remained a constant struggle for the Black liberation movement. The Ten Point Program of the Black Panther Party called for a “decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American Society.” The Panthers utilized the Freedom Schools as an environment to achieve this goal, teaching students Black history and instilling them with pride and an urgent desire for political advancement. While the Panthers focused on educating the youth, the fight for Black history echoed in academia. Student organizations like SNCC protested on college campuses throughout the country for the introduction of a Black studies department, with San Francisco State College eventually creating the first in 1968. From then on, Black studies has remained a vital, rapidly-growing sector of academia, though the fight to move the Black perspective beyond the confines of one department remains an active struggle.
In recent years, advocates have focused their efforts on incorporating Black studies into K-12 curricula, which would allow students to cover the full breadth of Black history as opposed to a brief annual Black History Month Lesson on MLK and Rosa Parks. The “modern” struggle for Black history did not start with AP African American Studies or even CRT. In September 2020, Trump issued an executive order directly attacking “divisive concepts,” including the belief that the U.S. is inherently sexist or racist. As calls for diversity, equity, and inclusion grew following the public lynchings of George Floyd, Ahamud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others in 2020, the order simultaneously made the censorship of diverse perspectives a priority for conservatives. Thus, as 2020 catalyzed nationwide acknowledgment of Black voices and history, the events also generated a movement dedicated to quelling the country’s newfound passion for diversity. These movements then collided with the introduction of CRT, and the appropriated legal framework turned conservative buzzword ignited a new wave of anti-Blackness in education. Trump and other Republican leaders, including DeSantis, urged their constituents to “stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory.” While liberals scrambled to debunk CRT as a hidden agenda to indoctrinate children with hatred, the movement to permanently exclude Black history from curriculums was fully underway. Anti-CRT laws now continue to divide state legislatures, crippling students’ education and our democracy.
Amid this partisan battle, AP African American Studies is but the latest innovative step to expand the presence of Black history in students’ education. Despite Black studies continuing to be a vibrant discipline, never before has the study been incorporated into the country’s main K-12 curriculum (other than radical, Afrocentric silos like the Freedom Schools). While some high schools began to offer standard or honors level African American Studies courses, the increasingly competitive college application process makes AP a necessity for many students. The course would not only give students the option to study Black history but would grant them the same rigor and course credit as other AP courses, such as AP Government and Politics and AP Biology. In the college application process, universities would weigh the rigor of the course as equally significant as other common AP courses, incentivizing eager applicants trying to pack their schedules and boost their GPA. By elevating the course to an “AP” level, students would be rewarded for learning Black history and performing well in the subject. The ascent of Black studies from an afterthought to an AP course does not correlate to an increase in importance (America has failed to teach its own history), but a sign of recognition among those previously inclined to ignore it.
In addition to the benefits of an AP status, the course’s original framework provided students with a comprehensive, inclusive understanding of the Black experience. From The New Jim Crow to the concept of reparations, the original version linked familiar tales, uplifted unknown histories, and connected the past to our current predicament. The course even challenged the current field, as the incorporation of key Black figures in the LGBTQ and feminist movements would enable students to advance beyond the often one-sided Black narrative. The new version of the course, overshadowed by political polarization, removed these topics, making them sample project topics for students to pick up if they choose. Without teaching these concepts in the main course curriculum, students will once again be robbed of reality and fed an Americanized account of events that ends in a facade of American exceptionalism and “racial harmony.” While the status of the course as Advanced Placement will attract more students, it is the preservation of the original content that will foster the emergence of a racially conscious, truly well-educated generation.
The calculated effort to prevent access to Black studies, under the facade of exposing the “liberal agenda,” highlights the transformative social, cultural, and political power of the discipline. The study of Black history is, in and of itself, a critique of Western civilization. As students trace their way from African kingdoms to Black Lives Matter, the unjust subjugation of Black Americans will shift from a matter of opinion to one of historical fact. The course could then inspire the incorporation of diverse perspectives in all grade levels. In time, students will be able to discuss their social identities, including their privilege and oppression, without the fear and guilt that prevented their predecessors from doing the same. This skill is a fundamental part of anyone’s education, considering discourse and equity are necessary for democracy’s survival. DeSantis and other conservative leaders recognize, or soon will, that this course would cultivate a new generation of Americans; for whom social justice will not be a partisan issue but a human issue. Their platform, built upon white fragility, would itself become fragile in the face of radical empathy and truth. Those that oppose AP African American Studies do not wish to maintain a “patriotic” curriculum; many of them are simply afraid to confront their moral failures. AP African American Studies, and the field of Black studies as a whole, is not just about honoring history; it is about preserving our humanity.
Nicholas Brown is a Staff Writer for the Columbia Political Review and a member of the Eric Holder Initiative for Civil and Political Rights Student Advisory Board. He is a freshman at Columbia College and is planning to study African American Studies and Political Science.