College Board to Offer Advanced Placement Course in African American Studies

According to Smithsonian magazine, a new program offering African American studies will soon be available in many US high schools.

Designed by historians and academics, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the course will be an Advanced Placement class that ranges from historic documents by enslaved African Americans and their descendants, to the Civil Rights movement, to pop culture phenomena like the movie Black Panther (and its coming sequel).

A.P. programs, overseen by the College Board, offer high school students the chance to take college-level courses that count for credit when they enroll in college. Most high schools around the country offer such courses, usually in such fields as calculus, environmental science, and history. These courses give students a leg up throughout their education careers.

The College Board plans to increase the number of high schools offering the course to 200 in 2023-24, and to all interested schools the following year.

An Advanced Placement course will help legitimize African American studies, while also counteracting the conservative backlash against Critical Race Theory, which is taught almost exclusively in law schools as a contextual perspective on American history and law. PEN America, a free-speech advocacy group, has reported that in 2022 alone, 137 bills have been introduced in at least 36 state legislatures to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, gay/lesbian studies, and aspects of American history.

As Dr. Gates told Time magazine in an interview with writer Olivia B. Waxman, “Nothing is more dramatic than having the College Board launch an A.P. course.”