Philly Requiring Black History Course for High-Schoolers
Graduation requirement has been 30 years in the making
By Marlon A. Walker
Philadelphia
The board governing Philadelphia’s schools decided a lesson on Black history was needed — for everybody. In February 2005, the city’s School Reform Commission voted unanimously to approve a Black history course as a required class for high school students. To SRC Commissioner Sandra Dungee Glenn, it means most of the city’s public high school students will finally get to know where they came from.
“It’s overdue.” she says. “This is really the culmination of something that started over 30 years ago by students around 1968-69 when the district began to be a majority African-American district. The curriculum [at the time] didn’t reflect the work of people of African-American descent.”
She was referring to moves by students in the late 1960s to add Black history to the district’s curriculum. Dungee Glenn says courses had popped up in various schools over time as electives, but nothing was districtwide until now. The course includes units on African-American history and some on African history, she says.
“I think it’s relevant for [Black] students, knowing who they are and where they come from,” she says. “We can’t talk about history without having an understanding of Black history.”
According to the city’s education officials, students who started the 2005-2006 school year as freshmen must take the required history elective. Any other students, such as those who were in high school last year, are exempt from the mandate, but may take the class to fulfill one of their five credits of elective coursework needed to graduate.
