MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE TO OFFER CREDIT TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ON CIVIL RIGHTS SOJOURNBROOKLYN, NY — Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York has announced plans to provide advanced placement credit for a group of up to 90 NYC high school students who will participate during this school year in a civil rights travel-study program called Sojourn. Eligible NYC high school students will receive three elective units of college credit by completing a course entitled: "Medgar Wiley Evers and the Civil Rights Movement," which will include readings, interviews, journal-keeping and the completion of a final report.
According to Dr. Sheila Mayers-Johnson, Chairperson of the Medgar Evers College Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies through which the course is being offered, "Sojourn's program is perfectly timed. The last presidential election of the 20th century provides important motivation for young people to re-examine the civil rights movement and the particular implications of voting rights."
Sojourn provides an opportunity for high school students from San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and New York City to travel to the South and study the civil rights era in intimate settings. The program's 10-day itinerary includes Washington DC, Atlanta, Tuskegee, Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham, Jackson, Little Rock and Memphis. By way of a "living history" syllabus - books, documentaries, recordings and on-site visits with civil rights veterans - lessons of tolerance, nonviolence, personal courage, compassion, forgiveness, faith, hope, justice and civic responsibility are imparted during expeditions. John Lewis (U.S. Congressman), Myrlie Evers-Williams (Medgar Evers' widow), members of the Little Rock Nine, voting rights pioneer Robert Moses, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth (leader of the 1963 Birmingham movement), Chris McNair (father of one of four little girls killed in a Birmingham church bombing) and Martin Luther King III, among others, meet with students and teachers during their various stops through the South.
