Simon Youth Academy students take part in a trip to Washington DC each year, but a civil rights trip this week to Georgia and Alabama will be the first of its kind.
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For some students, this will be their first time on an airplane.
Ivan Harry, a junior at Clark-Pleasant Academy, is among the inaugural group of Simon Youth Academy students to head south to learn more about civil rights history, at the places pivotal events of the 1960s took place. For Harry, who has never left the Midwest, the experience will expand her horizons, she said.
“I wanted to go on this trip because I’ve always been interested in civil rights activism and passionate about seeing opportunities come up like this. This felt perfect. It was immense to me that we would even do something like this and see these historic places,” Harry said. “I think it’ll give me a bit more insight as to the whole struggle of different marginalized groups. I can have a new worldview as to what’s been going on to do my best to help defend other people if something bad ever happens, and do my part to make sure equality is actually achieved.”
Harry is among a group of six Clark-Pleasant Academy students who will head to Georgia and Alabama Thursday, for a trip that will take them to the Rosa Parks Museum, Lynching Memorial, Freedom Riders Exhibit and the neighborhood Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in Atlanta.
Clark-Pleasant Academy students will join 29 other students in Simon Youth Foundation academies across central Indiana, said Jon Shapiro, program director for the Simon Youth Foundation.
Part of a $365,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Education goes toward enrichment opportunities for students, and after learning of the civil rights trip a few year ago, Shapiro decided it was the perfect opportunity to use some of those funds, he said.
“From an educational standpoint, anytime you have an opportunity to bring history to life and allow students to see, touch and feel things they’ve learned about through civics and social studies classes at school, you try and take advantage of it,” Shapiro said. “A piece of it is to help students have better opportunities that exist for them as citizens, to help and care for and act for others when they may be in a position of being oppressed.”
Students had to go through a selection process to get picked for the trip, said Lesleigh Groce, student services coordinator at Clark-Pleasant Academy.
“We factor in if it’s career-related in their essay, if they are someone who has never flown on an airplane. We like to give them (new) experiences that put them out of their comfort zone,” Groce said.
For McKaylynn Williamson, another junior at Clark-Pleasant Academy, the trip will serve as real-world education in her quest to pursue a criminal justice career, she said.
“A big part of criminal justice is treating everyone with equality,” Williamson said. “(It’s important) to see how we treated other people so differently, and how we can learn from our mistakes and improve as a society.”
The trip will also allow students to meet peers from other Simon Youth Academies who have been selected to go on the trip, Groce said.
“We’re all in the same academy, sponsored by the same entity, but they don’t really interact with other kids who are in the academy,” she said. “To see kids that are like you even in all the ways you are different, is interesting.”
For Rayna Cuzick, a junior from a family with diverse backgrounds, the experience means much more, she said.
“I applied because I have a very diverse family, and growing up, I got to see how everyone is treated so differently. It’s a big thing for me. Civil rights have always been big for my family,” Cuzick said. “It will give me a new perspective.”
