Through advice and encouragement from his friend Sue Ellen and civil rights leader John Lewis, Arthur gets the rest of his class to participate in a sit-in protest.

In the library, Arthur has a nightmare where Mrs. MacGrady is overworked from breakfast being served 24 hours a day; he awakes to find John Lewis sitting at the table with him.

Carol Greenwald, executive producer of Arthur, wrote that Lewis was excited to appear on the show, although he corrected facts about his history in the writing and rejected initial character designs.

"[1] The writer of "Arthur Takes a Stand," Peter Hirsch, described that the episode aims to "explore how a young kid can protest."

In order to teach "one, how to protest, and two, empathy," the episode is about "Arthur [identifying] an injustice that [is]n't necessarily happening to him and to feel strongly enough to want to do something about it."

Greenwald said that the writing "definitely is in line with all that we’ve done always on Arthur, which is to bring in diverse viewpoints and interesting guest stars and think about topics that a lot of other kids’ series might not.

"[1] After the episode's release, Greenwald noted that it received "a lot of really positive responses," but also a few about "people saying we shouldn't be showing kids stuff like this."

"[1] An animated short titled "Arthur on Racism: Talk, Listen, and Act" was produced in memory of John Lewis in August 2020.