The Work Continues . . .

It has been nearly a year since the initial Creating a Usable Past tour that developed from my spring semester 2009 sabbatical project and a partnership with the Stratford Richardson YMCA of Charlotte, North Carolina. It is hard to believe that our hard working group of volunteers, mentors, YMCA leaders, and students are in the final stages of preparation for the 2010 version of the trip.

The fall and winter months of 2009-2010 afforded the team behind Creating a Usable Past the opportunity to explain our sense of why the stories of the struggle for civil rights in the American South still need to be told and, most importantly, how an intentional study of that past can engage young people to develop a passion for learning and a desire to create positive change in their communities.

With CNN's Soledad O'Brien in October 2009.

With Congressman John Lewis in February 2010.

YMCA executive Anthony Walters at Pfeiffer University gallery showing.

Gallery showing at Pfeiffer in February 2010.

Creating a Usable Past has benefited from dedicated support from the YMCA of Greater Charlotte and from Pfeiffer University (NC). This year's program will grow not only in content, but also in the number of students that we seek to reach. On April 15, our 2010 class met for the first time as a group at the Stratford-Richardson YMCA - which also happened to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (a fact not lost on those gathered that evening). Comprised of 15 students (3 peer mentors from the original class, plus 12 new students), the group represents young men and women ages 12 to 18 from middle and high schools across Greater Charlotte. These students were among a total of 55 who received nomination from their school principals or a recommendation from family or friends.

From the initial meeting until the beginning of the tour (June 13), these students will engage in a short course of the Civil Rights Movement and consider the present in which they live. This blog will serve as a forum to showcase their sense of that past and their dreams for the future. Moreover, they will provide day-to-day reactions as we trace Movement history by experiencing it upclose during our week long trip.

Please join me in congratulating the following young men and women for their accomplishment and return to this site often to read and react to their messages.

Beau DeVaul (13), Fredo Davis (17), Jasmine Bates (17), Sydney Espy (13), Geordea Herron (16), Bryanna Norwood (15), Breanna Washington (14), Ayana Daniel (15), Tiara Price (16), Lazaro Gutierrez (14), Keith Miller (13), Nevahl Nixon (17), Vandell Jackson (15), Marlon Dunlap (12), Darryl McCray (16)

-Michael