{"id":16707,"date":"2024-09-18T16:08:58","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T20:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/?p=16707"},"modified":"2024-09-23T09:56:58","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:56:58","slug":"uri-forgiveness-is-freedom-academy-inspires-future-generations-to-pursue-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/news\/uri-forgiveness-is-freedom-academy-inspires-future-generations-to-pursue-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"URI Forgiveness is Freedom Academy inspires future generations to pursue peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Academy was held on URI Kingston campus for the first two weeks of August. The program is an important reminder to celebrate The International Day of Peace on September 21, 2024.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I<\/b> \u2013 Sept. 20 \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWould you forgive him?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

That was the first question asked to the Rhode Island-native, all Black high school student cohort of URI\u2019s Forgiveness is Freedom Academy after watching the documentary, <\/span>Emanuel<\/span><\/i>, directed by Brian Testuro Ivie.<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer from the students was a mixed bag, mostly unforgiving and conditional, but there was a firm, \u201cNo,\u201d from one.  <\/span><\/p>\n

On June 17, 2015, a white supremacist walked into a bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and gunned down nine African Americans. Forty-eight hours later, the families of the \u201cEmanuel Nine\u201d stood in court facing the killer and offered words of forgiveness. <\/span><\/p>\n

The concept that forgiveness is freedom can be difficult to wrap one\u2019s head around. By interrogating the potential answer(s) to the question of forgiveness as freedom, the academy provided a venue for faculty and scholars to engage with the legacy of slavery, systemic racism, and racial violence in the United States and around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/b><\/p>\n

The Forgiveness is Freedom Academy ran from August 5<\/span>th  <\/span>to August 16<\/span>th<\/span>, 2024 at the University of Rhode Island. Four rising seniors in high school attended the two-week academy, which was run by three university professors (<\/span>Dr. Catherine John<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Dr. Skip Mark<\/span><\/a>, and Dr. <\/span>Marcus Nevius<\/span><\/a>), four undergraduate TAs (two from URI and two from HBCUs), and a graduate RA (Joe Amaral). The academy examined racial violence across time and space in history to understand the idea that forgiveness is freedom. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Forgiveness as Freedom Academy helps students reflect on the complexities of protest, violence and democracy in the United States. Peace as a concept, although not directly engaged by the academy, isn’t possible without an understanding of the issues that create war, injustice and destabilization. By analyzing texts that deal with the foundations of Western civil societies, students gained a complex understanding of what it takes to make a society run peacefully,\u201d explained professor of Africana studies, Dr. Catherine John. <\/span><\/p>\n

The academy has been around for several years and originally came out of a grant from the <\/span>Teagle Foundation<\/span><\/a> \u2013 a nonprofit organization that supports and strengthens liberal arts education. Dr. Skip Mark describes that in part, the idea of the academy is to imagine that problems pertaining to racial discrimination and hate will continue to exist as a structural problem. The key is to remove the hate from specific individuals, and instead, take stock of what systems perpetuate these issues and move away from violence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not necessarily looking for high school students with a perfect 4.0 GPA,\u201d said Skip. \u201cIt\u2019s for students who otherwise do not think that they could go to college. We\u2019re looking for students who are interested in social justice issues and have experience and knowledge on the topic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The two week program was packed from start to finish. Each day was spent taking a variety of courses (ranging from humanities, to history, African studies, literature, music, and more) that showcase the ways in which students can understand legacies of violence through different frameworks. It\u2019s through this well-rounded lens that students can begin to make more sense of racial injustices, and violence entwined with systems at play. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had debates about how different thinkers have grappled with this question of forgiveness. We explored our own mistakes and what forgiveness meant to us. As the discussion unfolded, ideas and beliefs around forgiveness changed throughout the academy,\u201d said Skip.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scholars engaged in these conversations using readings, documentaries, music, dance, guest lectures, and field trips. In the Academy’s first week, scholars read excerpts from Thomas Hobbes’s <\/span>Leviathan <\/span><\/i>(1651)<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>from John Jacques Rousseau’s <\/span>Social Contract <\/span><\/i>(1762)<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>and David Walker’s <\/span>Appeal <\/span><\/i>(1829)<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>They watched documentaries about desegregation in Boston schools and bussing riots, documentaries outlining the ideologies and events in the civil rights movement (Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and others), analyzed a hip-hop album and the ways that music can be used to express, understand, and represent racism and anger.<\/span><\/p>\n

The academy does not just end at the end of the two week stay. In order to maintain the momentum the students felt at the end of the academy, they were tasked with a year-long project that aims to address issues of racial violence in their community and apply what they\u2019ve learned to their surroundings. The project could be anything from a song to a traditional research paper. <\/span><\/p>\n

“I think the humanities contribute to a strong democracy. The humanities provide students with an understanding of race relations in our country through history, music, and art, and provides the tools to express anger and grievances constructively,” said Skip. “If all we teach students are marketable skills, we are doing them a disservice.”<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the pillars of democracy is pushing people to engage in these really difficult conversations. With difficult topics like racism, a knee-jerk reaction is often the first. However, it is important to approach these matters in a structured, focused way that builds on lessons from the past. For young people especially, it\u2019s important to understand why things happen. One grows up in America learning about democracy, freedom, equality and meritocracy; and then, it becomes clear that everything points to the fact that this simply is not true.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe tend to think that kids don\u2019t have agency. I think it is a real detriment to not push younger people to have these conversations until college,\u201d said Skip. In turn, the students who participated in the program felt appreciated and loved the opportunity to be treated like an adult. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next year, Skip and the Forgiveness is Freedom Academy team hope to expand the cohort to 12-15 students from Rhode Island. They also hope to give participants more free time to explore URI campus and get a unique opportunity to get a sense of what it\u2019s like to be an independent college student. Recruiting efforts include local school visits and job fairs. <\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/b><\/p>\n

At the end of camp, the students were asked to watch<\/span> Emanuel again and asked the same question, \u201cWould you forgive him?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the scholars in particular at the beginning of camp said the act was unforgivable as killing people in a church is something that can absolutely not be forgiven. Upon the second viewing, his opinion shifted. He understood why the families of the victims had the ability to forgive. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn two weeks, there was a fundamental change in how a student could view something that arguably is the worst humanity has to offer. Showing the value of forgiveness and compassion was really, really powerful for me,\u201d said Skip\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Forgiveness was now seen as \u201cthe only path forward,\u201d \u201cfreedom,\u201d \u201clove,\u201d and \u201cturning foes into friends\u201d for the students. This was a radical transformation of their thoughts and a powerful example of how engaging with these ideas and struggling through them is the best hope we have as a country to address racism and prevent racial violence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The icing on the cake for such an important and impactful program is the fact that it is great for the university. \u201cThese are students who care about social justice. I\u2019d love to have any of these students be in my classes. I feel like these kids are going to be the people who change the world,\u201d said Skip.<\/span><\/p>\n

CENTER FOR NONVIOLENCE AND PEACE <\/b><\/p>\n

Skip Mark is Co-Director of the<\/span><\/i> The URI Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies<\/span><\/i><\/a> organizes educational programs, training workshops, documentary films, and guest lecture series to promote nonviolence, inner peace, well-being, human rights, and a beloved global community. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Visit their page to view recent news and upcoming events.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Learn more: www.uri.edu\/nonviolence Phone: (401) 874-2875<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Academy was held on URI Kingston campus for the first two weeks of August. The program is an important reminder to celebrate The International Day of Peace on September 21, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3771,"featured_media":16710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[292,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3771"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16707"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16725,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707\/revisions\/16725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}