RI teachers in unique position to use new AP course in classroom

Erik J. Chaput and Russell J. DeSimone are the historians-in-residence on the Dorr Rebellion Project website. They are currently at work on an examination of George Downing’s life and career.

The teaching of American history has at various points in our nation’s past served to heighten culture wars and impact politics. At stake, in the minds of many participants, lay fundamental questions about the values that underpin society. At the center of many of the contentious debates over the teaching of American history in the last 100 years has been the discussion of race in America.

This winter, Rhode Island educators should take advantage of “A Matter of Truth,” a new exhibit at the State House sponsored by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society and the John Hay Library. The exhibit stems from the engaging and well-researched book of the same title by Keith Stokes and Theresa Guzmán Stokes examining Black and Indigenous history in the Ocean State. The exhibit could serve as a bridge for teachers looking to bring the new Advanced Placement African American Studies curriculum into their classrooms next year.

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Over the last 18 months, an intense battle has been waged over this new advanced placement course, with some state boards of education, including Florida and Arkansas, banning it. The course has come under fire, forcing the designers to adjust a portion of the proposed content in some of the final units. However, we should not lose faith in education — public or private — to let students sort through our nation’s history and arrive at informed conclusions with the help of dedicated teachers. Overall, the revised course is rich in material and can be paired with numerous texts, including Henry Louis Gates’ “Stony the Road.”

As the Black historian and intellectual W.E.B. DuBois noted long ago, “Nations reel and stagger on their way; they make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful wrongs; they do great and beautiful things. And shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this, so far as the truth is ascertainable?”

Rhode Island educators are in a unique position to bring portions of the new curriculum into their classrooms because of the wealth of supplemental material now available. A host of new sources, many of them making available the perspective of African Americans, has transformed the teaching of U.S. history. A detailed study guide put together by the educational team at the Rhode Island Historical Society can be accessed from the Department of Education website.

In addition, the Black Convention Project website provides teachers with an opportunity to tell the story of 19th century Black reformers, such as Newport’s George T. Downing and Rev. Mahlon Van Horne, to a new generation of students. Downing worked tirelessly throughout his political career for the broadening of democracy and citizenship. Speaking at the National Convention of the Colored Men of America in January 1869, Downing maintained that the Union victory meant that “the moral sense of the nation” had been “awakened” and now it was time to work to “secure some final measure of equal and universal suffrage, without any discrimination on the ground of race, color, previous condition or of religious belief.” Downing’s intellectual and constitutional arguments paved the way for a new generation of reformers in the 20th century.

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There is no doubt that our polarized political climate has put tremendous strain on educators. This divide was brought into sharp relief a few years ago with the debates over the New York Times’ 1619 Project and the counter 1776 Report. American politics, as historian Richard Hofstadter wrote long ago, is often “an arena for angry minds.” Rigid ideologues avoid “exposure to events that might enlighten him.” This trend often trickles down to other aspects of American society and culture. It is up to educators to push back. Difficult subjects require us to be willing to examine our deeply held beliefs.