New AP African American studies course is introduced
People gather at the March on Washington in 1963. AP African American Studies will include material on the civil rights movement.
The College Board publicized in February that a pilot AP African American studies course begins at 60 high schools this fall. According to The New York Times, the class covers “civil rights, politics, literature, the arts, even geography,” rather than being solely history based.
The pilot program will expand to more schools around the country next school year. In addition, it is anticipated to be available to all high schools in the 2024-25 academic year, presenting a new AP possibility to Staples students.
“I personally love history and seeing history from different parts of the world and different perspectives so I think it would be really interesting,” Isabella Roberts ’23 said.
I think a lot of our [American] history comes from African Americans. It would be beneficial to have a class to learn about their history.
— Sofia Martin ’25
Students at other schools taking the pilot course this year will take a pilot exam, however it will not count towards college credit.
Currently, Staples offers four history APs –AP U.S. history, AP European History, AP World History and AP U.S. Government and Politics–but not one that focuses solely on African American history.
“I think a lot of our [American] history comes from African Americans,” Sofia Martin ’25 said. “It would be beneficial to have a class to learn about their history.”
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I worked at Staples for almost two decades. One of my responsibilities was maintaining the course catalog and creating the master schedule ( roughly years 2010-2018. African studies was always offered. They never had enough kids registered to run the class consistently.