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Since 2005, all students attending the School District of Philadelphia are required to take a course on African American History to graduate.

1967 protests
By 1966, the Black student population of the School District of Philadelphia had become frustrated with the perceived inequalities in the district, such as a lack of Black teachers and administrators, few opportunities for union apprenticeships, and the high dropout rates of Black students compared to their white peers. Some had also run into conflict with administrators who had prevented them from displaying afro-textured hair, using Afrocentric names, or wearing traditional clothing such as dashikis and kufis. Many students, supported by 1967 mayoral candidate Cecil B. Moore, began advocating for a number of changes, including classes within the school district on African American history. On November 10, 1967, a small group of students, all members of the Black Students Association, were threatened with suspension for holding a demonstration in the music room of Edward W. Bok Technical High School to advocate for an African American history course.

2005 reform
By 2005, the School District of Philadelphia had 185,000 students, two-thirds of whom were Black.

On September 9, 2004, CEO Paul Vallas and other School District of Philadelphia officials announced that beginning in January 2005, two schools would pilot courses on African and African American history, which would be expanded to all Philadelphia high schools for the fall 2005 semester. This announcement was in response to a complaint from Robert Gray, a member of the African American Freedom and Reconstruction League, that there was insufficient instruction in the district regarding these topics. During this period, the School Reform Commission (SRC) would decide whether these courses would be required for all students, allowed as a substitute for mandatory social studies courses, or if they would be elective courses. These courses, which were designed by Temple University professor Molefi Kete Asante, were unveiled at the start of 2005 in four district high schools: Strawberry Mansion, William Penn, Carver Engineering and Science, and John Bartram. On February 17, the SRC unanimously voted to offer these pilot courses at all high schools for the 2005–06 school year. This was part of a larger resolution that planned to close the racial achievement gap in Philadelphia schools.

Response
Following the nationwide George Floyd protests in June 2020, students in the public school district of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, began advocating for a mandatory high school African American history class. In February 2021, the Cherry Hill school board unanimously voted to institute the mandate, making the district the first in New Jersey to mandate a semester of African American history for all high school students.