Third Ward high school is the first to offer AP African American Studies course in Houston region

For a long time, Nelva Williamson wanted to teach an AP African American Studies course, and now she is among the first in the country to do so. Young Women's College Preparatory Academy in Third Ward is the first school in the Houston region, and one of 60 nationally, to pilot the new course from the College Board. Many history classes include slavery and Martin Luther King’s involvement in the civil rights movement as the two main references of the African diaspora, the mass dispersion of African Americans who were enslaved, from the 1500s to the 1800s, Williamson said. MORE ON YOUNG WOMEN'S PREP: This Third Ward all-girl college prep school is one of the top-ranked Houston schools. Here's why. She sees this class, which is offered to sophomores, juniors and seniors, as an opportunity to take a closer look at everything that happened between those two events. “You probably remember your high school history book and people of color women were always relegated to the endnotes of a chapter or the appendix or the footnote or a special activity,” Williamson said. “They were not really in the text.” Texas schools didn’t officially offer a regular placement African American studies course until 2020. The first time the State Board of Education approved an ethnic studies course was in 2018 when it signed off on a Mexican American studies course. Meanwhile, the political discourse around race and education has become fraught in Texas. Last legislative session, lawmakers passed a controversial bill that aims to ban the teaching of “critical-race theory” in K-12 public school classrooms. Before the bill was voted on, House Democrats added a list of additional historical documents written by people of color and women. It also required that students be taught “the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong.” Overall, the feedback Williamson received about the course she's teaching has been overwhelmingly positive from parents and students, she said. She said they trust her to teach the material accurately, since she’s known many of them since they started at the school in sixth grade. “There is a trust factor that I'm teaching the history in a truthful way and history that's going to be impactful,” Williamson said. During her class on Tuesday, she taught about the great lengths former slaves went to find their families after the Civil War. She asked her class to look through a database of old newspaper ads that freed former slaves who were looking for family members put out. “Look at the dates in this newspaper. This is 1881. The war ended in 1865,” Williamson said. “What does that tell you?” On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston family advises audience 'Do your research' after finding long-lost relatives of a former slave One student found one from 1894. Then another in 1900. One student hypothesized that it showed dedication and strong sense of commitment to family, since they continued to search for decades, oftentimes to no avail. She also made a point of putting a local emphasis on the material. After, they read the 13th amendment, which freed enslaved people, but also provided a loophole --- people who were convicted of crimes could still be used for slave labor. Then she told them about what is known as the Sugar Land 95, the 95 people found in an unmarked prison cemetery on Fort Bend ISD property while crews were building a school in 2018. Now, it's projected that it could be as much as three times that. SUGAR LAND 95: Sugar Land 95 could become Sugar Land 300; researcher says convict leasing program had more victims Besides having local relevance, some of the students said they took the course because they wanted to learn more about their roots. Cameron Thomas took the class because her great-great-great grandfather was a freed slave, who went on to start his own business, and owned about 5 acres of land in Tyler, which is still in her family today. “I wanted to learn more about my history,” Thomas said. She wasn’t the only one whose interest was piqued. When Williamson held an information meeting last year, it was “standing-room only,” the history teacher said. The course was greenlit for a second pilot year, and roughly 500 schools will be offering it, Williamson said, and she anticipates it will take three years to officially launch the course. To her knowledge, Williamson said there is only one other school in the Dallas area currently offering the AP course. The College Board did not respond to several inquiries from the Houston Chronicle about whether other Texas schools were offering the AP class. FROM JOY SEWING: From book bans to erasing African American figures from curriculum, Black history is under attack The curriculum was not as well received everywhere. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in January he would ban the curriculum in his state, claiming it violated state law with the discussion of Black queer studies and the reparations movement. David Coleman, the head of the College Board, told the New York Times that the organization has no intention to succumb to political pressures. “At the College Board, we can’t look to statements of political leaders,” he said. Houston leaders, however, applauded the Third Ward school for being among the first to offer the curriculum. Bishop James Dixon, president of the NAACP Houston chapter, said the course was long overdue. “We think it's imperative that schools like YWCPA and every public school in fact, have specific courses and classes that are focused on teaching all students about this dimension of American history,” Dixon said. “African American history is American history. That is the big misnomer.”

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Third Ward high school is the first to offer AP African American Studies course in Houston region

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