Just in time to celebrate Independence Day, 31 St. Louis area high school
Students – 50 percent African-American, 40 percent Jewish and 10 percent white Christian – return from a 23-day odyssey across the U.S. that has given them insights into civil rights and social justice in America.
The teens are participants in Cultural Leadership, an award-winning local non-profit youth leadership development organization that gives students the tools to be activists, community organizers and fighters against discrimination.
The trip is part of a year-long program that provides the students with ways to fight prejudice, bigotry and teaches them how to make a difference in the world.
During their trip, Cultural Leadership participants met with politicians,
members of the clergy, civil rights leaders and others who have made a difference in their community. The students also visited places significant to the fight against social injustice including Atlanta, Ga; Birmingham, Al; and Little Rock, Ar.
Highlights of the trip include seeing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Rev. Al Sharpton, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, The Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and the Lorraine Motel Civil Rights Museum.
Participants attended religious services at a synagogue in New York City, Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and a Masjid (neighborhood mosque) in Washington, D.C.
This trip gave students the opportunity to study and discuss issues such as education, the achievement gap, illegal immigration, gay rights, the criminal justice system, genocide, and the oil spill.
Thursday, July 1 the teens will return from the journey by bus and share how the trip has changed their lives. They will reflect on the meaning of freedom and what Independence Day represents to them. Reporters, photographers and camera crews are invited.
The reunion will take place at approximately 2 p.m. at the Central Reform Congregation; 5020 Waterman Ave. (South-West corner Kingshighway and Waterman)
For more precise information, please call Karen Kalish, founder and executive director of Cultural Leadership at (314) 580-6832.
