Recently, 30 Y in Central Maryland teen leaders arrived in Topeka, Kansas after completing a week-long, uniquely curated Freedom Ride across ten southern states to gain a greater understanding of the civil rights movement and its profound influence on society and culture today. Taking their name and inspiration from the great Freedom Ride first conceived in 1947 and then carried on in 1961 in which student activists rode buses from Washington, DC to Jackson, Mississippi to test the Supreme Court decision declaring segregation on interstate buses unconstitutional, the youth visited museums and monuments of relevance to the civil rights movement and met with civil rights community leaders to learn how they too can become advocates for social justice in their own communities.
Coordinated by the Y in partnership with the Teaching Artist Institute, the trip included youth from across the Y, including our newly formed Youth Advisory Board, Next Gen Scholars (which serves first-generation college students), Youth and Government (which is designed to give high school students a hands-on lesson in how government works), and New Horizons II (a workforce development and life skills program for students experiencing homelessness).
Some highlights of the trip included:
- The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and National African American Museum of History and Culture in Washington, DC;
- The Robert Russa Moton Museum in Virginia, the birthplace of America’s student-led civil rights revolution that changed the landscape of American education;
- ‘The Story of Shirley Chisholm,’ a one-woman show about the first African American woman elected to Congress;
- The Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia;
- Learning about the Gullah Geechee people in South Carolina and their struggles to keep their lands from being gentrified;
- The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where a local activist shared her experience on Bloody Sunday and its impact on the Voting Rights Act.
As an organization dedicated to community building, healthy youth development and social responsibility, teaching young people about the historical significance of the civil rights movement and its present-day relevance speaks directly to our mission and values. As social and political upheaval swirls about us, I am encouraged to know that these 30 young people and so many others like them at the Y are learning about our difficult history as a country working to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice.
Thank you to everyone who made this once-in-a-lifetime trip possible, led by the massively talented and able Charmayne Turner, Vice President of Youth Development.
All the best,
John K. Hoey
President & CEO
The Y in Central Maryland