AP Black History Program Makes Discussing Black Lives Matter Optional and Won’t Mention Rape

The Advanced Placement (AP) Program, run by the non-profit organization The College Board, has issued its final 2024–2025 school year guidelines. The AP African American Studies course has been hotly debated since Florida Governor. and fading candidate for the Republican nominee for President injected himself and decided the previous version would not be taught in Florida because it didn’t align with his desires.

In the final version, the AP course makes the teaching of the “Black Lives Matter” movement optional. At the same time, mandatory learning includes NFL players taking a knee on the sidelines during the National Anthem. Which of these two has had the most impact on American history? The issue of reparations has also been made optional. Both Black Lives Matter and reparations were initially considered “Essential Knowledge” by the College Board but became optional after pressure from DeSantis and other politicians.

The State of Florida had previously issued its Social Studies Guidelines, including Black History. To its credit, the Florida guidelines are surprisingly comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics and individuals yet promoting a theme that makes white people look better and highlighting the activities of white abolitionists, who are the story’s heroes. My biggest objection was the repeated reference to “natural reproduction,” which explains away the fantastic increase in the number of domestic-bred enslaved people instead of properly attributing it to forced breeding and rape.

The public debate between DeSantis and The College Board seemed to presume that the AP Program was proposing a complete and accurate version of Black History while DeSantis wished to gut the program. The new AP version is as disingenuous as was Florida when discussing what some historians refer to as “natural increase” and what Florida calls “natural reproduction.” Here’s the only mention of this in the AP guidelines.

“Even after the 1808 ban against importing enslaved Africans, the number of enslaved Africans in the United States increased steadily throughout the nineteenth century as children of enslaved people were born into enslavement themselves, such that 4 million Africans remained enslaved in the United States — about 50 percent of all enslaved people in the Americas — by the time of the Emancipation Proclamation.”

The AP program mentions the word rape twice, whereas Florida doesn’t mention rape at all. The AP says that some slave women were raped during the Mid-Atlantic Passage and that there were no laws against rape of enslaved women in the country.

“Aboard slave ships, Africans were humiliated, beaten, tortured, and raped, and they suffered from widespread disease and malnourishment. About 15 percent of captive Africans perished during the Middle Passage.”

“Laws against rape did not apply to enslaved African American women.”

What both Florida and The College Board are unwilling to say out loud is that not only was a significant foundation of America built on the backs of enslaved people. America’s labor force was increased by forced breeding and rape. Thomas Jefferson ended the International Slave Trade in 1807 as a protectionist measure to increase the value of domestic-bred slaves. Jefferson wrote George Washington explaining that a Black woman having a child every two years was of greater value than any field hand and would increase profits by 4%.

I’ll be reviewing the entire 294-page AP Guidelines to see what else they say (and omit) about Black history. Assuming they got it right might have given them too much credit.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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