Making A Movement Summer Arts Workshop

Making A Movement: Arts and the First Amendment Summer Learning Program

Making Making a Movement: Arts and the First Amendment is a program for middle school students that launched the summer of 2017. It was developed by Maya Cunningham for Ethnomusicology In Action at District of Columbia Public Schools 2017 Summer Learning Program. For five weeks in the summer, students learned how to make a social justice movement by closely studying six that have defined and changed US History. The first learned about the formation of the United States, the writing of the US constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment freedoms. They moved on to study six different social justice movements including

African – American Civil Rights Movement
Black Power Movement
Native American Power Movement
Standing Rock Movement
Immigrants’ Rights Movement and
The Black Lives Matter Movement

In this program, students learn the history and issues of each movement by engaging in readings, documentary films, primary source documents and critical analysis. They also learned the music and arts traditions that drove each movement forward. Students take action on an issue that they believe in by engaging in a project related to social media activism. In the summer of 2017, students wrote and produced a podcast series. During the next program cycle, students will continue to creating social media campaigns and perform songs from each movement in the Making a Movement Freedom Choir. Students will continue in the program throughout the school year in an internship program through which they learn to lead internet activism and community engagement projects.
This summer, participating students formed a youth activist group called The Freedom Seven, inspired by the Little Rock Nine, in order to present their Making a Movement Podcast Series.
Click here to listen to the Freedom Seven’s Making a Movement Podcast Series.