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Press Releases

New Democracy Coalition Launches Youth Leadership Project, Explores Boston Busing Crisis & Struggle for Voting Rights
April 21st 2007

New Democracy Coalition launched this spring a youth leadership project aimed to build leadership among inner city high school students living in the Boston neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and Hyde Park.

The project uses history and popular education strategies to build leadership in communities of color.  Youth participate in an 8-week program called the Freed People Project.  Youth explore the historical meaning of freedom and democracy and relate them to recent struggles among Americans to broaden civic and civil rights.

“Inner city youth are not often exposed to core civic ideas about the meaning of freedom and citizenship and their ability to function as activists in the communities, schools, church or at home,” said Kevin Peterson, director of New Democracy Coalition.  “This is a unique program that seeks to teach democracy and expand the understanding of what leadership means to a new generation of citizens who must be challenged to lead in the future.”

The pilot program, created by New Democracy Coalition, is supported by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, the Boston Youth Fund, the Odwin Learning Center and the Roxbury YMCA.

Program participants focus on the Boston busing crisis of the 1970s and the struggle for the right to vote as a means of understanding and building leadership.  Youth will meet with academic, community and political leaders in Boston to sharpen their understanding of freedom struggles.

“This is an exciting initiative that directly addresses a dire need in our community”, said David Harris, chairman of the board of directors for the Masschusetts Foundation for the Humanities.  “It will provide much needed perspective for the participants and promises to become a model for promoting civic engagement for our young people.”