Judy's Notebook: Civil Rights for the Next Generation | PBS NewsHour: ...Wednesday as I spent time with one of the many groups of young people who flock to Washington during our hot summers. This was a special group: 51 Free Spirit Journalism Scholars, high school students from all over the country who had come to the nation's capital for a week to learn and to be inspired. The young people are carefully selected from all 50 states plus the District of Columbia to attend an annual conference run by the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press and free speech. The competitive process, named in honor of Forum founder Al Neuharth, saw applications from 600 rising high school seniors.
They're treated to talks by prominent politicians and journalists and encouraged to ask questions, which they eagerly do. I was fortunate to sit in on a session with three heroes of the Civil Rights movement. I came away impressed with the students, but blown away by the three much older men who played a central role in the Freedom Riders movement, the campaign by civil rights activists in 1961 to ride interstate buses into the South to confront state laws and customs enforcing segregation.
