--- title: AP African American Studies Teachers Face National Scrutiny description: In Louisiana, one teacher invited reporters into his classroom to answer questions about the class, which has sparked criticism from Florida Governor Ron De Santis. canonical: https://time.com/6257576/ap-african-american-studies-louisiana-teacher-cameras/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-02-22T20:54:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-11T20:51:16.000Z article:section: History og:title: This AP African American Studies Teacher Invited TV Cameras Into His Class to Avoid Controversy og:description: “I've never experienced something like that in my teaching in 29 years," says Emmitt Glynn. og:url: https://time.com/6257576/ap-african-american-studies-louisiana-teacher-cameras/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa64d7290cccde3a/698a3aa7b3fce3578a0ca395/ap-african-american-studies.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: ap-african-american-studies og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This AP African American Studies Teacher Invited TV Cameras Into His Class to Avoid Controversy twitter:description: “I've never experienced something like that in my teaching in 29 years," says Emmitt Glynn. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa64d7290cccde3a/698a3aa7b3fce3578a0ca395/ap-african-american-studies.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This AP African American Studies Teacher Invited TV Cameras Into His Class to Avoid Controversy. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The History You Didn't Learn: The Black Panthers' Health Programs [Watch (HLS stream): The History You Didn't Learn: The Black Panthers' Health Programs](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/28opNCMF.m3u8) (9:52)  _Published 2021-02-25. The History You Didn't Learn is a series that sheds light on past events that may have been omitted, misleading, or just downright wrong in our history education in school._  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Updated: Dec 11, 2023 8:51 PM UTCPublished: Feb 22, 2023 8:54 PM UTC  Emmitt Glynn teaches AP African American Studies on Feb. 17 Emmitt Glynn teaches AP African American Studies on Feb. 17 Travis Spradling­—The Advocate/Capital City Press/Georges Media Group  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Updated: Dec 11, 2023 8:51 PM UTCPublished: Feb 22, 2023 8:54 PM UTC When it came time for Emmitt Glynn to teach the lesson on the [Black Panthers](https://time.com/5937647/black-panther-medical-clinics-history-school-covid-19/) in his [AP African American Studies class](https://time.com/6251733/ap-african-american-history-professor-florida-interview/), 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 that class 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. Baton Rouge Magnet High is one of 60 pilot schools testing out the College Board’s newest Advanced Placement course, which is designed to offer college-level instruction to high school students. Glynn was worried about the reaction to one element of the AP African American Studies class’s lesson on civil rights history: having students read the [Black Panthers](https://time.com/5938058/black-panthers-activism/)’ Ten-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 lesson came about a month after the Florida Department of Education rejected the AP African American Studies class and [Florida Governor Ron DeSantis](https://time.com/6255568/ron-desantis-ap-courses-florida-2024/) called it “indoctrination.” Shortly after, it was revealed that the agency asked the College Board last fall, “Does the course promote Black Panther thinking?” The [Black Panthers](https://time.com/4489428/stephen-shames-blank-panther-photos/) have been long smeared as violent and communist. “I really struggled,” Glynn says, describing what was going through his head prior to the class. “I’ve never experienced something like that in my teaching in 29 years, having to feel I had to take careful steps with a subject because it might make people upset.” The class also happened to fall on the same day that local reporters, including TV news crews, came to interview Glynn and some of his students about the class. Reporters didn’t see that part of the lesson, but instead [saw](https://www.theadvocate.com/baton%5Frouge/news/education/ap-african-american-studies-course-draws-national-controversy-but-not-at-baton-rouge-high/article%5F498b7300-aed8-11ed-a4e3-7726c313d870.html) Glynn teach about Martin Luther King Jr.’s [“Letter From Birmingham Jail.”](https://time.com/3773914/mlk-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. Teachers from Texas to New England tell TIME that they can’t ignore the news around AP African American Studies. Many say, though, that DeSantis’s objections to the course have only made their students more engaged. Austin Sparks, who is teaching the class in the Cleveland area, turned the controversy into a teachable moment. He and his students discussed parallels between Florida’s decision to ban the course, and lessons they had already covered, including material they previously covered, like Jim Crow laws, which legalized racial discrimination. “Students were throwing up their hands left and right, making connections to what we’ve learned so far” about the fight for equal educational opportunities for Black Americans, Sparks says. Two schools in Florida stopped the pilot mid-year after DeSantis spoke out against the class in mid-January. The course is more than a decade in the making, but launched in the fall of 2021 in large part as a response to the murder of [George Floyd](https://time.com/5846727/george-floyd-protests-history/), so that high school students wouldn’t have to wait until college to learn about police brutality and other issues affecting the Black community in historical context. In the second phase of the pilot program, slated for next year, students will have the opportunity to earn college credit for the course if they pass the Advanced Placement test. **Read more:** [What It’s Really Like Inside One of Florida’s AP African American Studies Classes](https://time.com/6255616/florida-ap-african-american-studies-class/) However, academics have questioned why the final course framework, released Feb. 1, does not include Black scholars who were listed as required reading in previous drafts—figures like [Kimberlé Crenshaw](https://time.com/5891138/critical-race-theory-explained/), a godmother of the concept of intersectionality, the way of looking at discrimination based on how racial and gender identities overlap. But some teachers say it’s hard enough to get through the immense amount of required course content as is. As another Baton Rouge-area pilot teacher Malcolm Reed put it, “The whole story of the African-American experience can’t be taught in a school year.” The College Board says it should have clarified that the final framework is only an “outline,” and it will allow the high school teachers to incorporate many different scholarly voices. The New York-based education nonprofit, which also runs the [SAT college entrance exam](https://time.com/6254390/i-took-the-sat-again-in-my-50s-turns-out-i-had-learned-nothing/), apologized in a Feb. 11 statement for “not immediately denouncing” the Florida Department of Education’s “slander” that AP African American Studies “lacks educational value” and not making it clear that it had been in contact with Florida Department of Education officials over the last year regarding the course approval process. **Read more:** [African-American History Finally Gets Its Own AP Class](https://time.com/6207652/ap-african-american-history-class/) Thirty civil rights groups signed a letter calling on the College Board CEO David Coleman to step down. Ena Thulin, who is teaching the class in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., says, “I do think the timing was bad” in terms of the College Board’s decision to publish the final framework right after Florida sent the course back for revisions. She’s glad that the College Board publicly “acknowledged that they probably should have pushed back harder against what was happening in Florida.” Nelva Williamson, who is teaching the class in Houston, Texas—one of the 18 states with [laws](https://time.com/6075193/critical-race-theory-debate/) designed to restrict how [the history of racism is taught](https://time.com/6192708/critical-race-theory-teachers-racism/) in K-12 schools—predicts that even if a state tries to ban AP African American Studies, there’s so much publicity around it now that the resources will just be made available to students in another way. In that case, “the class just goes underground, meaning that the class is still taught, it’s taught by another title, and select students are involved in the course,” she argues. “Educators might say, OK, I only want to teach Black kids because they’re not gonna tell on me.’ And that would be unfortunate because I think this history is for everyone to know.” **Read more:** [The Real Reason Florida Wants to Ban AP African-American Studies, According to an Architect of the Course](https://time.com/6251733/ap-african-american-history-professor-florida-interview/) Yet, questions persist among the nation’s first AP African American Studies students about what the Florida controversy means for them. Lamont Simmons, a teacher in [New Orleans](https://time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places-2021/6079279/new-orleans/), says he recently had to reassure his students that they don’t have to worry about the class getting canceled. “My students were like, ‘Is our class in jeopardy?’ I told them no.” He believes there are real-world consequences to not being able to offer this kind of in-depth Black history class. “We have a lot of crime going on, a lot of poverty, and that disconnection from history is part of the reason,” he argues. He found student participation was highest during the lessons about African kingdoms. As he put it, if Black high school students don’t learn about Black history before slavery, “your perception of yourself is limited.” Despite his nerves, Glynn in Baton Rouge is going to keep his doors to his AP African American Studies class open. He’s invited parents to come and observe anytime, and a local pastor approached him about designing a similar course for his churchgoers. “I’m not gonna be intimidated,” he says. ## Transcript I've been going around and talking to Young students, from fourth grade all the way through two phds. And usually, the questions that people ask me was where you guys keep your gun. Why didn't you like white people? I think still in schools are still recognized as a black nationalist, paid movement and there was never hate is better Fact. One of the things that Drew me to Black Panther pray that they love the people so much. Is that in order to do that kind of work in order to be that Focus, you had a really love the people The Black Panthers are one of the most misunderstood civil rights groups in American history. Started in 1966 by Huey. P Newton and Bobby seale as a way to protect black communities against police brutality. The Panthers are often depicted as a violent organization, but many of their contributions to the communities, they serve, especially in terms of healthcare, I left out of History textbooks. I think the dominant message from from almost every textbook I seen is putting the Panthers in what civil rights dollars have called it a quenching narrative, which is basically this idea that, you know, once the Black Power movement starts on but really after King's death in 1968, the Civil Rights Movement to Clines and you get these black radicals, we're just demanding too much, and nonsensically, turning to Violent tactics. I don't Think I seen a single text book that mentions the hundred or so social programs that the Black Panthers ran and they work with all four people. In fact they saw themselves as a single mother to Kingsport even forgetting King was assassinated. He was leading what he called, the Poor People's campaign King advocated as a Democratic Socialist against the, what he called, the Expo, dependents of materialism and capitalism Men show that they weren't static that they didn't have to be that way, but that there were ways in which to make those changes that were necessary in particular. Free Quality Healthcare was one of the key elements of the program of the Black Panther Party came to the South Bronx in the sixties as a healthcare volunteer and later joined the Harlem branch of the Black Panthers. Now, you know, the South Bronx is the congressional district in the united states with the lowest income per capita. It was then and continues to be today. So the conditions in the South Bronx or something that I had never seen before. Hospital was known for its horrendous treatment of it's predominantly black and brown patients. In fact conditions were so bad. That a 1970, silver star part in a protest for Community activist, including the Panthers, occupy the hospital for one day in hospital. Known as The Butcher. Shop conditions were really horrible. People were waiting for 72 hours to get Sting. There's no heat in the emergency room is really bad stories about Lincoln Hospital in and what could happen to you. If you had to go to Lincoln Hospital when we talked about the impact of racism and the Healthcare System, I mean there is a long history of medical discrimination. You know, we can think of the history that involves blackbody. He's being used as guinea pigs, black women and women of color going to the doctors and getting illegally sterilize it. So this is cost a lot of mistrust and didn't you VIP code matters, black communities that are in disenfranchising area. We have a history of not being protected and so Part of the history of medical discrimination is what the Panthers or tries to fight everything. From first aid, they had a free ambulance program, they had sickle cell anemia test, they had gynecological exam, Optometry Services, I mean, physical exam, there are tons of services that the Black Panther Party offered. When we talk about Health Care Program to go door-to-door and really test for diseases, like tuberculosis anemia diabetes. These are preventable diseases. We go in and we dirty an elderly person and in some apartment who really needed to see a doctor, but they were afraid to go to the doctor. And that's how we would be be able to refer them to a place where, where they would be seen to be held before the illness, whatever illness they have, not too difficult for them, they was in the community. Educating offering tools to matically empower the black community in much of that understanding of the Black Panther Party, has been written out of the public perceptions of the organization, it has a lot to do with the FBI and corns. Help cointelpro, which stands for counterintelligence program, was the FBI's illegal surveillance scheme. They looked at the Panthers at the threat and so they did everything. You can think of from infiltrating the organization to pushing lies in the media. The Panthers were actually about restorative care. They were actually about healing the community mind body and soul, and MF place in the margins of the history of the party disbanded in 1982. But the legacy of the Black Panthers continues to this day, it was stop and stare at them before long. But you need to take some over the community runs them. So you can point to community clinics health clinics pool program food banks, free bus in the prison programs list goes on there. Still alive. And well, today as its tensions in between waking a program to the party started. There are many kids that go to my high school, that get their Healthcare from the Carolyn Downs Clinic that was started by the Black Panther Party and they don't know the history of where it came from. And it's really sad because if students knew where their Healthcare was coming from, they would gain lessons about how to organize and struggle against those barriers today. Panthers work, Drew attention to Health Care disparities that covid-19 has made even more apparent today and their legacy of Community Care is carried on by activists like dr. Ala Stanford, who founded the black doctors covid-19 Consortium in Philadelphia. April 3rd, America's before being diagnosed and dying from coronavirus at reach greater than every other group in our city. We now know that's pervasive throughout the nation and was like the first time I sat in medical school naive excited. I was realizing my dream 22 and listening to a teacher say yeah. There's a social determinants of health and black people have poor health outcomes. They have a shorter life expectancy they do worse with cancer hypertension, diabetes surgery. And so when I heard it on April 3rd, It was like dang I've been here before only. It was 23 freaking years ago that I heard this same story and I said no, not this time. I'm not going to sit and listen. I'm not going to internalize that pain and just accepted as truth. I want to change the narrative. The black doctor is covid-19 Consortium. Brought covid, testing and Medical Aid into black neighborhoods that typically have reduced access to healthcare. They've tested more than 26,000 people for covid-19 and of provide a basic health services like flu shots. Now, the Consortium is holding code vaccination clinics for highly impacted communities. Just like racism is baked in every other aspect of of capitalism in this country. It's baked into the healthcare system. And I think because of that, that free and Equitable access to healthcare has always been a part of the black Freedom struggle, especially during the Civil Rights. Then I think if we're ever to get change the healthcare system in this country we have to learn from the civil rights movement and and and the folks who who fought for free and Equitable access. Carolina Panthers. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6257576/ap-african-american-studies-louisiana-teacher-cameras/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6257576/ap-african-american-studies-louisiana-teacher-cameras/"},"headline":"This AP African American Studies Teacher Invited TV Cameras Into His Class to Avoid Controversy. 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