Arab American Museum Joins Smithsonian National Youth Summit on Freedom Summer

posted on: Jan 22, 2014

On Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014, at 12 p.m. EST, the Arab American National Museum (AANM) will host the National Youth Summit on Freedom Summer, an online outreach program organized by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Coinciding with Digital Learning Day, the event at AANM will link students from Dearborn Fordson and Detroit Martin Luther King high schools with students at high schools across the country in an engaging program centered on the history and legacy of the 1964 youth-led effort for voting rights and education known as Freedom Summer.

The AANM is one of 11 Smithsonian Affiliate organizations simultaneously hosting Regional Youth Summit Conversations with local Freedom Summer movement veterans, scholars and youth. Affiliate Summit sites enable young people from across the country to participate in the conversation originating from The Old Capitol Museum, allowing them to submit questions for the national panel through the webcast’s online chat. The national event includes a panel with experts, scholars and activists such as Dr. Robert Moses, Project Director for Mississippi Freedom Summer.

At the AANM-based Regional Youth Summit, the Dearborn and Detroit students will meet Dorothy Dewberry Aldridge, 70, of Detroit, who was an organizer with the Local Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Aldridge will share her experiences and how the Detroit area participated in Freedom Summer. Marshalle Montgomery of New Detroit will moderate.

“It’s vital for today’s youth to understand how young people in 1964 were involved in efforts to end political disenfranchisement and educational inequality of African Americans in the South,” says Dr. Jumana Salamey, AANM’s curator of education and public programming.

“The students taking part in this Summit may become civil rights activists, lawmakers, human rights advocates or government officials. Exposing them to issues that have affected them, their neighbors and this country will help shape their future contributions to society,” Salamey says.

While the story of Freedom Summer is one part of the nation’s ongoing struggle to provide equal opportunities for all of its citizens, it is a story that began in Mississippi. As such, the Smithsonian has partnered with the Old Capitol Museum to present the National Youth Summit from Mississippi and to incorporate the perspective of students living in the state five decades after the youth-led effort to end political disenfranchisement and to improve educational opportunities.

Participants can visit http://americanhistory.si.edu/freedom-summer to register, find more information, and to view the program streaming live.

The National Youth Summit is designed to provide students with an opportunity to share their views and debate an issue, and the program aligns with the Common Core Standards for Speaking and Listening. Panelists and the audience will explore the 1964 youth-led effort to end the political disenfranchisement of African Americans and race-based inequity in education in Mississippi. The program will also focus on the role of young people in shaping America’s past and future. Classroom teachers and other participants will receive a conversation kit, designed to provide ideas for leading discussion topics in age-appropriate ways.

This National Museum of American History program is presented in collaboration with AMERICAN EXPERIENCE/WGBH, which airs on PBS stations, and Smithsonian Affiliations. The project is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Verizon Foundation.