BY OLIVIA B. WAXMAN
NATION
WHEN IT CAME TIME FOR EMMITT GLYNN TO TEACH the lesson on the Black Panthers in his AP African American Studies class, he says he was overcome with “fear” walking into his classroom at Baton Rouge Magnet High School on Feb. 17—fear that what happened in the room would be misconstrued by the outside world. The school has been fielding so many media requests about Glynn’s class that administrators set up a day for the press to come see the curriculum in action.
The Louisiana school is one of 60 nationwide pilot-testing the College Board’s newest Advanced Placement course, designed to offer college-level instruction to high school students. The element in the AP African American Studies lesson on civil rights history that had Glynn worried was the Black Panthers’ 10-Point Program. Required reading for the course, the 1966 document demanded equal opportunities for housing, the end of police brutality, and the release of Black people from jails because they didn’t get fair and impartial trials.
The media crowded into Glynn’s classroom about a month after the Florida department of education rejected the AP African American Studies class, turning it into a lightning rod in the debate over how Black history is taught in public schools—including how much of the history of racism students should learn. Shortly after, it was revealed that the agency had asked the College Board last fall, “Does the course promote Black Panther thinking?” The Black Panthers have been long been stereotyped as violent and communist. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is thought to be eyeing a possible 2024 presidential run, has put culture-war issues at the center of his administration. He called the class “indoctrination.”
“I’ve never experienced something like that in my teaching in 29 years,” Glynn says, “having to feel I had to take careful steps with a subject because it might make people upset.” On the day local journalists were invited into the class, reporters saw Glynn teach about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” The subsequent coverage resulted in no local scandal in Louisiana’s capital city and no national controversy. Glynn’s press conference is perhaps an extreme example of how AP African American Studies teachers say they’re working hard to prevent the controversy over the class from disrupting their students’ education.
