MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and NBC national reporter Bracey Harris teamed up on the former’s Monday show to discuss Arkansas’s announcement that AP African American Studies will not count towards graduation credits because it is still a pilot program. Extrapolating from that, the duo suggested the state will not teach about the Little Rock Nine, which is simply not true.
Maddow hyped Harris’s reporting on the subject, “So you were able to track down members of the Little Rock Nine, meaning those nine brave students who in 1957 defied mob-enforced segregation to get into Little Rock Central High. And they are reacting to this decision to downgrade AP African American Studies and for Little Rock Central High to teach it anyway. What are they telling you when you track them down?”
Harris recalled two conversations she had. First, "I had the opportunity to speak with Terrance Roberts, who was one of the nine students to, you know, help cross that color barrier in Little Rock, Arkansas, and, you know, some of the feedback he just bluntly gave me is that he thinks, you know, the state needs to get out of the way. That students need to have the opportunity to learn. That going over this era in the country's history is something, you know, that needs to happen.”
Additionally, there was, “Elizabeth Eckford, who I think many people may recognize from that historic photo, wearing, you know, the sunglasses, as there's just a white teenager just yelling behind her, as she tries to, you know, go about that moment.”
Harris relayed that Eckford “said that she felt like this is, you know, an attempt to, this greater attempt to erase history. So they're definitely watching what's, you know, happening in this moment, for sure.”
Lost in the conversation about pilot programs and Critical Race Theory is that Arkansas’s high school history standards make an explicit reference to The Little Rock Nine and the fight over school desegregation, but you would never know that if all you did was watch MSNBC.
This segment was sponsored by Etsy.
Here is a transcript for the August 21 show:
MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show
8/21/2023
9:44 PM ET
RACHEL MADDOW: So you were able to track down members of the Little Rock Nine, meaning those nine brave students who in 1957 defied mob-enforced segregation to get into Little Rock Central High. And they are reacting to this decision to downgrade AP African American Studies and for Little Rock Central High to teach it anyway. What are they telling you when you track them down?
BRACEY HARRIS: Yes, so I had the opportunity to speak with Terrance Roberts, who was one of the nine students to, you know, help cross that color barrier in Little Rock, Arkansas, and, you know, some of the feedback he just bluntly gave me is that he thinks, you know, the state needs to get out of the way.
That students need to have the opportunity to learn. That going over this era in the country's history is something, you know, that needs to happen, and Elizabeth Eckford, who I think many people may recognize from that historic photo, wearing, you know, the sunglasses, as there's just a white teenager just yelling behind her, as she tries to, you know, go about that moment. You know, she said that she felt like this is, you know, an attempt to, this greater attempt to erase history. So they're definitely watching what's, you know, happening in this moment, for sure.
