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Learn More About Jonathan Daniels. Learn More About Samuel Younge. The Jonathan Daniels and Samuel Younge Institute for Justice and Nonviolence is named after two Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee activists who were murdered during the Southern Freedom Movement. The Institute honors the work of Jonathan and Samuel through its Daniels and Younge Fellows Program. Through the program, The SpiritHouse Project: (1) supports and prepares a new generation of peace and justice workers who want to discern a call to social justice and nonviolence; (2) strengthens their courage, hope, resolve and reason to do this work; (3) prepares them to play leading roles in public policy debates about issues such as poverty, prison industrial complex, militarism, and the shrinking budget for human needs, voting rights, privacy and judicial issues, and neo-conservatism; and (4) helps grassroots communities meet their urgent need for trained and committed volunteers or staff. Daniels and Younge Fellows undergo a summer to a year's formation process that includes an interdisciplinary curriculum of classroom work, meetings and conversations with older Southern Freedom Movement activists, spiritual reflection, field work, public speaking and research. Many of our Fellows come from poor communities and would be denied this extraordinary experience without a stipend. Their participation is crucial since the most pressing needs of grassroots community are volunteer staff and long-term staff. In less than two and a half years, The SpiritHouse Project trained 15 fellows from economically disenfranchised communities as well as from universities around the country. Our class of 2002 included a Kenyan American, Trinidadian Indian American, two European Americans, and an El Salvadoran American. Our class of 2003 included five African American women from economically disenfranchised communities. Two of our fellows were single heads of households. Our Fellow for 2004 is a first year African American male student at Howard Divinity School. Many Fellows lack the historical knowledge of the past movements that enable them to place their work and calls as justice workers into a continuum of struggle and victory. Moreover, they come lacking intergenerational connections. Cut off from this history and connection, Fellows often come to The SpiritHouse Project dispirited and feeling very powerless and sometimes very angry. Often during the first few weeks of the Institute, we spend a lot of time listening to their suffering, aspirations and fears. It is as much healing work as it is teaching work. The class of 2002 held a national press conference that called the nation away from the USA Patriot Act and an endless war on terrorism to a more open democracy where the U.S. uses our resources to build up a better world at home and abroad. Additionally, they also conducted a national campaign that shed light on the economic disparity in the nation as well as the growing crisis of the prison industrial complex that holds more than 800,000 African American men as a captive workforce. They asked this question: What does it mean for the men, their community and the nation that the US is willing to invest more in their captivity than in their human and spiritual potentiality? JONATHAN DANIELS AND SAMUEL YOUNGE FELLOWSHIP The summer internship can begin as early as May or the beginning of June, and it ideally runs from six to eight weeks. Interns are a part the Jonathan Daniels and Samuel Younge Institute, as Daniels and Younge Fellows. Both Jonathan Daniels and Samuel Younge were student activists during the Civil Rights Movement who worked in Alabama. They were murdered by two white southerners. This internship honors their work while providing an opportunity for a new generation of activists to have hands-on classroom and field experiences in environments that radically differ from your daily ones. This is an unpaid internship. However, you will receive free housing, food, and a minor stipend. You will live in the Carver Heights community, which is one of the oldest black subdivisions in Columbus, Georgia. Once a middle-class community, it lost ground when many of the younger people began to leave for employment and college and never returned. Today, it is safe community, working to reach its highest potential. Carver High School is located in Carver Heights. Daniels and Younge Fellows participate in an intensive, creative, and organized set of activities that place you on the front line of important public-policy issues, which relate to critical peace and justice questions. You will have the opportunity to improve your analytical, reading, writing, organizing, communications, and planning skills. Interns also work in the field as organizers and popular educators. You will assist in providing grassroots communities with the information they need to become more knowledgeable and effective players, both locally and nationally. This is an exciting year for Daniels and Younge Fellows. You will get an opportunity to be on the front line of educational reform, giving black students the backups they need to reach their highest potential. You will also participate in organizing a resource center in SpiritHouse’s new location. In addition to these incredible duties, you will receive the opportunity to organize the first education convention in the 21st century. While organizing this convention, you will meet local black folk in Georgia and Alabama, world-renowned scholars, practitioners, and social critics. Interns are expected to organize a press conference, where they will talk about public-schooling reform, the prison industrial complex, and racism in the 21st century. Throughout the internship, you must be willing to read, reflect on, and critique new knowledge, gained new experiences, and classroom work. As a Jonathan Daniels and Samuel Younge intern, you will work with Ruby Sales, a seasoned justice worker, educator, writer, social critic, and history maker. Cheryl Blankenship will supervise you on a daily basis. Cheryl has a long career in higher education, as well as Learn and Serve America. She is a former Senior Program Officer for AmeriCorps, where she oversaw more than 300 programs in 24 states. IF INTERESTED, CONTACT: Listen to Anna Sidigu, a 17-year-old freshwoman from Kenyon College, who belonged to the first class of Daniels and Younge Fellows. "SpiritHouse is changing with the world and changing with the times. I have had the wonderful opportunity of being a part of these changes. My work on the USA Patriot Act and, more recently, the Homeland Security Act has given me a much clearer view of the world. We live in a time of great turmoil and disconnection - a time in which racism is running rampant, and fascism is quick at its heels. As a young person, I worry that we are allowing the wrong people to make the changes that most affect our lives. I also worry that out of these changes will come only violence, fear, and persecution. SpiritHouse has opened my eyes to a new vision of my world and my future as an activist and writer. Asking questions, sharing ideas, "interrogating our deepest assumptions," as Ruby Sales says, "to uncover the lies of systemic injustice" - all of these are integral to the work of SpiritHouse. Now, I better understand the roots of the prejudice and hostility I experienced as an immigrant child in the United States. I will take the knowledge and skills I have learned from my experience as a Daniels and Younge Fellow to improve life not only for myself, but also for all peoples everywhere." Or listen to how The SpiritHouse Project transformed Mirna Callejas, an immigrant from El Salvador and a Daniels and Younge Fellow at SpiritHouse. "Working with the SpiritHouse Project has been a wonderful experience, because it has allowed me to meet a diverse group of young college students who are all working towards the same goal of making a difference in the lives of others. Thanks to this opportunity that was given to me by the Executive Director of this great organization, I am able to gain a new outlook in my life, and in the way I perceive myself." Read more of what our former interns say at www.spirithouseproject.org. SpiritHouse is a national organization that brings diverse people together to build up a just and non-violent world, by tackling systemic injustice such as racism, sexism, and classism. We use the arts, research, education, action, and spirituality to ground our work.
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JONATHAN DANIELS & SAMUEL YOUNGE INSTITUTE