Students in the 2016 CRMI Cohort included Hazat Akanni, Rachel Ojo, Jessica Dough, Chevell Burgess and Evangeline Bemah-Stokes. In writing about their motivations for taking part in the program, students drew on their different experiences growing up in Rhode Island and abroad. Jessica and Evangeline both pointed to the blatant inequities between the resources provided to their high school, which primarily serves students of color, and white affluent schools in Providence. Both young women expressed their wishes for the schools exchange programs and class curricula to have focused on discussions of race and privilege. Further, students discussed their struggles with understanding self-worth as related to their racial identities. Students expressed that CRMI offered an opportunity to formally study deeply felt, structural inequality and oppression through a focus on the Civil Rights Movement.
To read more about the group’s experience, visit their blog.
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