The Chicago Project

 The Chicago Project

The Participants: From left: Jeff Cardwell, Rochelle Barnes, David Smith, Lena Jasper, Darla Johnson, Carrie Saxton, Michele Lorenzo, Jason Good, Jessica Tobe, Tiffany Wolf, Michelle Wilson, (not pictured: Sara Miller). 

 History and Purpose of The Chicago Project           

 The Chicago Project is a five-day immersion trip where teachers from Greeneview High School, a predominately white, small rural school, take twelve eleventh-grade students and put them into a ninety nine percent African-American inner-city neighborhood. The students meet weekly for six months prior to the trip to do team building activities, discuss readings on issues of racism and civil rights, and plan the ten fund-raising activities to fund the trip.  While in Chicago, students talk with speakers, visit historical sites, and get to know people in the community. 

 The Chicago Project started in response to two racial incidents that happened nearby. First, a group of students attempted to burn a cross on the grounds of the Afro-American museum at Wilberforce, just 15 miles away from Greeneview High School. A couple of months later, a group of college students carried a mannequin across campus and hung it from a tree to scare some friends. The mannequin used was black, and the students failed to consider the racial environment this created.  Furthermore, the school was Antioch College (only 15 minutes away)—one of the most progressive and liberal colleges in the Midwest.