Under pressure from rightwing white nationalist extremists to remove content from the
Advanced Placement course on Black American History, and after Florida governor Ron DeSantis
blocked its teaching in Florida public schools, the College Board bowed to pressure, deleting such
well known and respected authors from the course as Michelle Alexander and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Also removed from the cirriculum were teachings on the Black Lives Matter movement, and writers
linked to Black feminism and queer rights.
LGBT Floridians have been a particular target of DeSantis, who began targeting Disney after it voiced
objections to Florida's Don't Say Gay law. In defending his ban on the Black History AP course
DeSantis pointed to content in it relating to queer Americans, thereby playing a familiar right
wing game of pitting one minority group against another.
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, went on a tear defending the practice of
ex gay conversion therapy, particularly as it applies to children, in his blog post of April 22, 2021.
While trivializing the intensely damaging act of implanting fear and self hatred in gay teenagers as merely wanting
to "...pray that someone would have relief from, holiness in, biblical obedience in, even understanding
a same sex inclination or anything covered under LGBTQ." He adds that "We're talking about basic Christianity".
