What can young people do to challenge segregation in their communities?
Just ask the Youth Leadership Team, a multiracial, multiethnic group of youth from Detroit and the surrounding suburbs.
The team was created as a result of the Summer Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity in Metropolitan Detroit at the U-M Detroit Center. The Summer Youth Dialogues is an initiative of the Michigan Youth and Community Program and National Center for Institutional Diversity, funded in part by the Skillman Foundation of Detroit and the Office of the Senior Vice Provost.
These youth leaders — of African, Asian, European, Middle Eastern and Latin American descent — made systematic observations, asked critical questions and formed their own conclusions about segregation in the City of Detroit and surrounding suburbs. Coupled with everyday experiences of growing up in the area, they found that segregation perpetuates economic disinvestment and social disparities, and that these have created a cycle of poverty and growing disparities in school funding, transportation and mortgage foreclosures.
A bus trip down Woodward Avenue augmented their experiences and allowed them to witness segregation along a major thoroughfare that connects Detroit to the outlying suburbs. From there, they formulated policy ideas and made public presentations, starting with the Michigan Children’s Conference in Lansing, where they voiced their concerns to their local elected representatives at the Capitol.
They then traveled to Washington, D.C., to present their ideas to policy makers such as U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, as well as U.S. Reps. John Conyers and Thaddeus McCotter, in addition to staff members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They called for changes in school funding disparities, public transportation and reinvestment strategies to re-establish Detroit as a national leader.
They ended their day with a visit to Nick Colvin, a U-M graduate and personal assistant to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. Colvin urged them to continue their engagement in public service in the years ahead.
An exhibit featuring the youth leaders’ photos and reflections is on display at the U-M Detroit Center through the summer.
