Sunflower county freedom project

1/23/14

Yesterday we went to the sunflower freedom project in sunflower county, Mississippi. We did a quick icebreaker - a cold wind blows - and then got into discussion groups. In my group there were reps from park, city and neighbors, and then four scfp kids: Brianna, Kiera, Lucius, and Arquaus (sorry about that spelling...). We talked briefly about college, which was a discussion question on the handout the gave us, and then moved on to asking them general questions about their lives. We talked about how if they went to the 'white folks' side of town,' people would look out their windows, open their doors, and let their dogs out to chase them. All of us were speechless, not only because of the content but more so because of the nonchalant, banal kind of everyday thing they talked about it as if it was. That was the truly shocking part.
We talked about "school negatives" and "school positives," and as the rest of us were saying things like "we have conversations but never act on them" or "too much hw!" and other things like that you'd expect from high school students at good schools, Quay's  answer was "we don't get enough work...or homework..." and Brianna said the same. Again, we were struck suddenly dumb when it hit us that too little work could be a) a feasible issue, and b) a consistently pressing one.

A lot of this trip has been eye-opening and meaningful to me, but this was the only one that knocked the wind out of me with the reality of poverty. This experience was the only one that made me painfully anxious to do something for someone we've met, mainly because each one of those kids have incredible potential and absolutely unthinkable hope. Reading their lit mag, filled with their reality - incredibly grim - juxtaposed and interwoven irreparably with their extreme, unbreakable hope, was incredible to me, and although their director mentioned the fact that their project is just the tip of the iceberg and that we shouldn't focus on them but on the greater problem, I cannot help but promise myself that when we return home, I will do all I can to help out scfp and all the amazing people there.

-Alia Satterfield, Park school