Thirty fellows from the United States and seven European countries, traveled to Atlanta this summer to participate in the 2017 John Lewis Fellowship program housed at Georgia State University.
Over the course of four weeks, the fellows “used Atlanta and its civil rights legacy as a classroom,” said Tanya Washington, professor of law and the 2017 director of the program.
The students visited key landmarks in the state of Georgia, and studied the history of Atlanta, considered by many to be the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement, through programming, panels, lectures, exhibits and presentations at the Carter Presidential Library, the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, the Atlanta History Center, the Herndon Home, the Center for Civil and Human Rights and the stockades in Leesburg, Georgia. The group lived in dorms on Georgia State University’s campus with their colleagues during the fellowship.
The Pedagogical Value of Diversity
- When: 2-3:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13
- Where: Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, 100 Decatur St., SE Atlanta
- Register here>>
From the beginning, there was one thing they all had in common, it was their passion for human rights. The city of Atlanta is rich in civil and human rights history, so instead of just reading the information from a book or researching online, the participants heard from scholars, leaders, visionaries and activists who share their passion, explored the challenges and opportunities facing the city of Atlanta and considered restorative justice approaches to contemporary issues affecting the city.
The group met with Roslyn Pope, a professor of English and Humanities at Atlanta Metropolitan College. Pope was a Spelman College student back in the 1960s and the president of the student government association. She wrote an essay called “An Appeal for Human Rights,” that was published in local newspapers. Pope’s piece launched the Atlanta Student Movement and the students of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) led the charge for change in Atlanta’s Jim Crow policies and practices. Her appeal provided a framework for the human rights issues at the center of the fellowship’s four weeks of inquiry.
“The experience was phenomenal. I truly believe that diversity has intellectual value, it’s not an aethestic,” Washington said.
“I intentionally created an incredibly diverse group, in terms of faith, in terms of race, in terms of ethnicity, class, gender and sexual orientation. I wanted people of different races from Europe and from across the United States,” she said. “I knew that by creating such a heterogenous learning environment would, as the U.S. Supreme Court observed in Grutter v. Bollinger, inspire higher order thinking and analysis.”
The fellows’ ages 19 to 28, range from newly minted lawyers, to playwrights, artists, students, elected officials, community organizers, teachers and activists. They became close during their venture and shared more than just a summer fellowship with their colleagues.
“The young people with whom I shared dinner plates, classroom arguments, tearful hugs, and 3 a.m. conversations will remain my North Stars on this journey we call life,” Hope Peterson, a 2017 John Lewis Fellow, writes in her essay.
“The 29 other fellows are the friends who challenge me to question and channel my privilege, the mentors who hold my actions accountable to all the heavy truths we’ve discovered, and the bright lights who remind me that throughout our struggle for justice, we are anything but alone. This profoundness, this deepening of historic roots and daily resistance, attests to the power of the John Lewis Fellowship,” said Peterson, a senior at Southern Methodist University.
The John Lewis Fellowship program is supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The program is created and hosted by Humanity in Action in partnership with the National Center for Human Rights. The fellowship is designed to “provide a group of university students and recent graduates with the opportunity to explore critical aspects of American pluralism, past and present.”
Washington will present her perspectives on the experience at the Georgia State University Teaching for Social Justice & Democracy Speaker Series on Friday, Oct. 13.
“My talk will examine the challenges and value of an intentionally heterogeneous learning environment, and the skills I employed to take advantage of the synergy inherent in such a space,” said Washington, in a written description about the Pedagogical Value of Diversity.