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By Sharan Street
Published Feb 13, 2023

London Nelson’s legacy persists more than 150 years after his passing. London Nelson’s legacy persists more than 150 years after his passing. Image credit: Alex Darocy   Santa Cruz Wiki

02-13-23: The Justice League

On March 31, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Less than a week later, the civil rights activist was assassinated. And 55 years later, it still feels as if it will take a long more bending to reach that promised land of justice.

Take, for instance, what seems to be a modest step in the right direction. Starting with the 2023-2024 school year, the College Board—a nonprofit organization that administers standardized tests and develops advanced placement (AP) curricula used by K-12 institutions—is expanding its pilot program on AP African American Studies. But what is welcome news to a high school teacher in Santa Cruz is an invitation to wannabe demagogues like Florida governor Ron DeSantis to raise the alarm about “critical race theory.”

When the official curriculum was made public on Feb. 1, The New York Times reported that the College Board had “purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism.”

The College Board has pushed back hard on the notion that DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education forced these changes. In a statement, the board said it realized terms such as “systemic marginalization” and “intersectionality” serve as red flags in red states: “We took a hard look at these terms because they often are misunderstood, misrepresented, and co-opted as political weapons. Instead we focused throughout the framework on providing concrete examples of these important concepts.”

David Coleman, head of the College Board, said the board received feedback that theoretical sources—i.e., expunged scholars like Columbia law professor Kimberlé W. Crenshaw and author Ta-Nehisi Coates—were “quite dense.” He added, “I think what is most surprising and powerful for most people is looking directly at people’s experience.”


What’s in a Name

To mark Black History Month, California Local writer Ray Delgado has compiled an inspiring list of 30 Black Californians who helped bend that arc a little closer to justice, starting in the 1800s and continuing to the present day. But the list is just a starting point. Another place to begin locally is with the story of London Nelson, the former slave who left his worldly goods to Santa Cruz schools when he died in 1860. History buff and author Geoffrey Dunn recounted Nelson’s story in 2021, when the spelling of his first name was corrected on the community center that bears his name. That mystery, Dunn wrote in the Good Times article, was solved by the late Phil Reader—whose research into Santa Cruz’s African American history is compiled in the book Do You Know My Name, copies of which can be purchased on the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History website.


California Pioneers

Clockwise from upper right: Architect Paul R. Williams, Assemblyman Frederick Madison Roberts, abolitionist Mary Ellen Pleasant, and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley (with President Gerald Ford).
Black History Month provides an opportunity to remember the achievements of African Americans who fought for equality in the Golden State.


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