Today our downtown office had a visit from high school students and faculty of one of our favorite Atlanta are schools, the Horizon's school!
They came to experience our Windows and Mirrors exhibit, which highlights the human impact of America's longest war in history, the war in Afghanistan.
Students took the time to walk the gallery and take in all the pieces. We later facilitated a discussion about the pieces that spoke to each student the most. I was really impressed by the focus and articulation that students put into describing their reactions to seeing the art. It was clear that, for the group, Windows and Mirrors accomplished what it set out to, it opened a window into the realities of the war experience in a time when war's realities are often hidden, it acted as a reflection to the roll we all play in systems of violence and oppression.
On April 4, 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a groundbreaking speech in which he famously made the link between the war in Vietnam and the “giant triplets” of militarism, racism, and poverty. Unfortunately, his message resounds all too clearly today with regards to our involvement in Iraq and elsewhere, and the link between our country’s militarism abroad and poverty at home. In Georgia, our communities spiral further into poverty while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq approach the decade mark . Young people see no option to pay for school other than joining the military, while others end up getting caught up in the prison system. Meanwhile, 35,000 four-year scholarships to colleges and universities could have been given for what we spend on just one day of the war. There is a new sense of hope in 2011, particularly among young people, yet that energy and excitement must be harnessed and focused for any of this hope to materialize.
The American Friends Service Committee and the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition are organized a three-day convergence for Georgia youth that created space for youth to imagine the Georgia that they want to live in, grasp organizing tools that lifted up past movements in the South, and build community with each other.
Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech will serve as the “grounding text” for the weekend. The speech was a great way to star conversations around the deep connections between systems of violence and oppression that control our bodies, minds and communities. How does recent anti-immigration legislation, like HB87, have anything to do with the war in Afghanistan? How does the foreclosure crisis, or the recent drastic cuts the public education have anything to do with the prison industrial complex? King's groundbreaking speech proved extremely relevant when exploring these questions.
This year's Youth Convergence was like no other. In years past we've held the youth convergence at Koinonia Farms in south Georgia, and it's been attended by mostly college aged youth that had some experience with activism. While we all REALLY love Koinonia, we wanted to do something different this year. There was a feeling that we needed to reach out to younger folks. So we decided to exclusively outreach to high school aged youth in Atlanta, we focused on schools we had relationships though out Student Career Alternatives Program(SCAP) and several Boys and Girls Clubs. We decided to hold the convergence at the Horizon's School in Atlanta, who we've had the pleasure of working with in the past.
Well this past Friday, day one of the convergence, we were all super excited to have a crowd of mostly high school aged youth, along with several middle school students, and a few college aged youth.
There was a little bit of tension in the first few hours of Friday's program, most of the folks had never met before and I won't lie, I thought it was going to be a challenge to get folks to come out their shell and take the risk to put themselves out there to each other....I was wrong.
The King Center facilitated an ice breaker and a presentation on Dr. Kings, "Beyond Vietnam" speech, and by the time dinner started folks were really mixing it up with each other. Nothing prepared me for what went down after dinner. Art as an Agent for Change has facilitated an hour long ice breaker at every Be The Change Youth convergence and this year was no different. They asked folks to develop a short skip, each group with a different topic, with topics being, militarism, racism, poverty, and hope. The skips were to be intertwined with each other with hope going last. At the end of the hope skit unplanned spontaneous singing just happen, and it was beautiful. Friday night was a highlight for me, I'll admit it brought tears to my eyes. Check out the video:
This is one is a series of public service announcements that Horizons School students created as part of our "Be The Change" curriculum. Students created this while the Georgia house and senate where still debating whether to enact massive cuts to the HOPE scholarship, of course most of you know that those cuts did go through. Now more than ever we need young voices added to the choir demanding a fairer Georgia, a Georgia the provides opportunity to those that need it most as opposed to handing opportunity over to those that need it least.
So give the short PSA a look and share it if you would like
As part of our Be The Change Curriculum, Several Horizons School students decided to write this little jingle in response to not only the multiple wars/occupations our country is currently waging, but the trickle down effect these systems of violence and oppression have on our communities. When governments model violence as a means to solve conflict, extract natural resources, and force their will upon others, what's the cost to our communities?
I think it's really cool that the group that put the song together decided to do it in three different languages. Here's a few words from the writers of the song:
Zack: Violence seems to be on important issue not only in our country,but all around the world.
This cheery little tune sends a message of non-violence to all who hear it.
Sami: از جنگ چیزی حاصل نمی شود. جنگ را رها کن و بسوی صلح قدمبزن.
War is not the thing. Let go of the war and forward for peace.
Ahmed: हम दोस्त हो सकता है क्योंकि दोस्ती है दुनिया बनाता चाहिए. We should be friends because friendship is what makes the world.
AFSC's pilot curriculum is in it's seventh week at Horizon's school and so far the experiment is going very well. This past week we meet with the whole student body and reviewed ways in which social justice organizations have used different art mediums have to create dialogue in the Atlanta community in the last month or so.
We also had Caitlin Barrow spend a few moments sharing her experience organizing against the Iraq war in Glynn County Georgia when she was in high school. Caitlin talked about what inspired her to get active,the challenges of organizing in rural Georgia, and the impact her high school activism has had on her life.
We spent the rest of the morning split up into working groups that the students helped to form around issues that they wanted to address in their communities. There were groups devoted to addressing education budget cuts, skateboarders rights, violence in the community, gay marriage, and the price of fossil fuels on our globe. Me, Caitlin, and Josie Figueroa went from group to group to help facilitate the process of campaign development.
Each group presented their ideas after we re-grouped and I have to say that I'm pretty excited what come of all this! Next week we'll be pairing each group with a young Atlanta organizer to help each group get a stronger focus, time-line, and a solid idea about need and resources available.
Yesterday Student Career Alternatives Program(SCAP), a project of AFSC, accepted the offer from the Horizon School to spend a few hours with the entire high school class to engage in a conversation about the realities of war, military service, non-military post high school options, and how the war budget effects Atlanta youth. The afternoon started with a viewing of the AFSC produced 14 minute documentary, "Before You Enlist" and was followed by a series of facilitated conversations and group exercises. During our discussion about the cost of war students seemed to easily draw the connection between the enormous military budget(about 1.9 billion a day) and the recent cuts in Georgia's education system(high school teachers being laid off, schools shut down, 78% tuition hikes for college students). Horizon students also drew connections between the war budget and the foreclosure crisis, violence in schools, crime, addiction, Marta funding crisis, homelessness, and innocent civilian deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Though many of the Horizon students already felt committed to find non-military post high school options, we had a lot of them thank us for arming them with new facts and giving them a deeper understanding of US foreign and it's effect on our communities right here in Atlanta.
We were thankful for the opportunity to work with students at Horizon and look forward to building our relationship with the school.
Wow, I must say that today was an emotional rollercoaster for me. I suppose that I could say that I had almost every emotional response I've ever had from a street action over the years rolled up in one day. The plan for the day was to support the student organizing efforts to counter picket the Westboro Baptist Church at two Atlanta area high schools, Druid Hills and Grady.
The Druid Hills picket was scheduled from 7:40-8:10am, right as students are showing up to school. Several of the students we had been working with had told us that the principle of the school had repeatedly told them that if they were seen joining the counter demonstration that they would be escorted by the police into the school and possibly arrested. I personally spoke with the principle and she confirmed this. My feeling is that her motive was to protect her students from physical and emotional injury but that doesn't justify ignoring their civil liberties, their right to confront the hate that had been brought to their community. Not only does the first amendment extend to public school property, the faculty has no right to attempt to control their students bodies off the school property before classes start.
I was supposed to meet several dozen folks, including members of the press, at the school at 7:30am. Due to the intense traffic created by the police presence I did not get their till almost 8am. Most of the folks I was supposed to meet didn't make it in time. For the sixty of us that did make it we were confronted with perhaps the most unnecessary show of police force that I have ever seen in my life. That's a pretty bold statement for me. I've been to several international demonstrations, Including the G-8 in 2004, where we had tanks and missile launchers roaming through low income neighborhoods.
To protect seven WBC members the police created a free speech zone for counter demonstrators. I spotted dozens of officers in head to toe bullet proof suits, there were machine guns, at least six tears gas machine guns, rubber bullet shot guns, riot shields, all totally inappropriate for something of this size.
For those that braved all those obstacles we did make the best of it. Passers by were all very happy to see the WBC wasn't the only group with a message that day. A jar was passed to raise money for Youth Pride, and students were seen cheering us on from inside their classrooms. As we left several students poked their heads out from their classroom trailers and gave us all a woot-woot.
The next stop was what we had all decided was going to be the finale, Grady High School. One big difference between Grady and the other two high schools was that the Grady students had controlled the conversation about how the campus was going to respond as opposed to the faculty(though faculty did attempt to extend their control beyond legal limits).
Grady student, Becca Daniels, along with several of her peers, had coined the counter demonstration, "Acceptance, Love, Tolerance" or, "ATL". Becca and crew had worked hard to instill a spirit of love and non-violence into the demonstration. They had also done a lot of prep work. Creating stencils for signs and tee shirts, developing a list of organizations to raise money for, and getting permission to use Piedmont park.
I showed up 45 minutes early with banners\signs from the art party that we hosted earlier that week. We also brought big donation buckets and leaflets to pass out to folks who may not understand what was happening or what we were raising money for.
By 3pm there was around 100 people there. By the time Grady High school let out the WBC had set up the picket. Grady faculty attempted to stop their students from leaving the campus but they simply couldn't hold them back. Grady students were going to express themselves regardless of the consequences. By the time 3:30 rolled around there was around 600 people lining the streets with messages of love and tolerance. We had folks walking up and down the crowd selling the shirts the Grady students had made and asking folks to make donations to:
AID Atlanta
www.aidatlanta.org
Jerusalem House
www.jerusalemhouse.org
Rainbow House
www.rainbowhouseinc.org
Grady students were joined by hundreds of other students and community supporters. The crowd got so big that it surged into tenth street, effectively shutting it down at times. When the WBC decided that they had enough and started packing up hundreds followed them to their car to make sure they left. After WBC left it was clear that people were going no where. The Red Dog police unit, infamous for their aggressive behavior towards all things homosexual, made several attempts to clear the crowd. Eventually they claimed that there could be a bomb in the park and that everyone had to leave. The crowd simply decided to take to Monroe and 10th. The crowd of mostly students and some AFSC folks stuck around till almost 7pm.
AFSC really had three goals in mind when we decided to organize around the WBC Atlanta visit. 1. To support youth and encourage youth organizing
2. To create awareness around hate crimes and homophobia
3. To help raise money for the very causes that the WBC objects to.
Seeing things through the lens of our goals I can honestly say that the WBC's visit was a blessing. Not only did we get to see amazing young people, like Becca Daniels and her peers, step and lead their campus, we had the opportunity to lead a workshop on confronting hate at the Horizons school, and create conversations all over the city about the homophobia and intolerance that exists in our community everyday. Groups like the WBC represent the fringes of public opinion in America, but it should be noted that when you take a short walk away from the edges of those fringes we find all kinds of nasty beliefs and fears rooted within our hearts. This week created opportunities to talk about the roots of these beliefs, and perhaps make steps to uproot some of them. We also raised close to $1000. over the course of two days, the final number will be in by this weekend.
Thanks to Horizons school, Grady Students and Countless others Atlanta truly did confront hate with Love, and If you ask me, Atlanta won:)
