Arrival in D.C.!

Welcome to the 2016 Bucknell Civil Rights Spring Break Trip! We have a jam-packed itinerary over the next four days. We start in Washington D.C. on Saturday with a bus tour that focuses on African American history in D.C. and then we will be doing some service work at Howard University. Sunday includes attending a church service at Asbury United Methodist Church and the National Museum of the American Indian. Monday starts with a tour of Howard University and ends with free time to explore the National Mall. Tuesday we will be stopping in Baltimore to visit a museum and the Muslim Community Cultural Center before heading back to Bucknell.

Rosalie discussing System Theory as it relates to
food security with Trey, Sha-Asia and Brittany.

Last Sunday, in preparation for our trip, we had a three hour curriculum session where we got to know each other a little better. History professor Leslie Patrick spoke to us about the the African American struggle to achieve basic human rights from the slave rebellions, the Underground Railroad, the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s up to the Black Lives Matter movement of today. Director of Multicultural Student Services, Rosalie Rodriguez, spoke about her research using Ecological Systems Theory to help identify the issues surrounding civil rights. The students broke up into small groups and tackled topics such as food security and body image using the concepts that they had learned about Systems Theory.
Finally, we played a game of Civil Rights Jeopardy.

The crew gets some last minute instructions before loading into the vans.

This afternoon we met on Seventh Street outside of Smith Hall and loaded up the vans for our drive to D.C. My van was very quiet as most of the students fell asleep quickly. We stopped in at Wegmans in Frederick, MD for dinner before arriving at our home for the next four nights.

Angela, Brianna, Eunyque and Trey at Wegmans.

Our home for the next four days.

We are staying at the National 4-H Youth Conference Center in Chevy Chase, MD. Its a really nice place and should make for a great base of operations for our adventures.

It's off to bed so we can be ready to start our immersion into the civil rights history in D.C.!