It was a summer to remember for the Armstrong Leadership Program and its student leaders. Leaders road-tripped around the South in exploring and contemplating the African American experience during slavery, Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement.

The trip was a part of ALP’s Cultural History Immersion Project, a summer program designed to educate youths on Black history. Ten student leaders, known as “CHIP ambassadors,” out of 33 ALP members from Armstrong High School were selected to travel to Greensboro, Atlanta, Tuskegee, Montgomery and Selma. Student leaders completed research-based learning in Richmond from July 23 to 25, then hopped on the road from July 31 to Aug. 3. The cultural immersion project was coordinated by Yvette Davis-Rajput, ALP’s executive director.

“Our belief is that when the students are given to learn more about the history and culture, the struggle and triumph, that it will inspire them to be a better version of themselves,” Davis-Rajput said. “I really believe in cultural exposure.”

 Armstrong students Zion Lundy, Anthony Stokes and Alana Hamilton at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.
 

Kristin Smith, the RPS business applications manager and one of the trip’s chaperones, noted that visiting the historical sites evoked emotional responses due to the sobering legacy of African-American oppression.

“One moment you’re encouraged and you’re happy, and then those moments when it was the reminder of America’s past, it was a range of emotions coming from students,” Smith explained during the trip to the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, its first stop.

Alana Hamilton, a rising senior at Armstrong High School, said she was moved by an exhibit detailing how 8 million Africans died en route to the United States during the slave trade, during her tour of the International Civil Rights Museum.

“It was an exhibit where you could see the Atlantic Ocean,” she said. “I remember being so fearful to walk through [it] because this is what my people went through and I was so emotional reading about how many people actually died.”

Hamilton said the trip was a “culture shock,” but it also was enlightening to learn more about Black history.

“When they teach us about these things in school, it’s basically a rough draft,” she explained. “They teach about our founding fathers and how our country was made, but they don’t teach us how Black people were actually treated. They teach us about slavery and segregation, but they don’t teach us about what we actually had to go through.”

Being inspired from the program, the rising senior plans to apply her learning by further educating herself and her peers.

While most seniors may be excited for their final homecoming and prom, Hamilton said she is more focused on her studies. She plans on applying to James Madison University in hopes of becoming a pediatric psychologist.

“I want to help rising Black women,” she said.

The Armstrong Leadership Program was founded in 2001 by the community organization Richmond Hill. The program is open to all Armstrong High School students.

The program will present a mini-documentary this fall.