04-02-08
#6
Mount Vernon seniors participate in Adelphi University
"Civil Rights Era" research project
Adelphi University, located in
Garden City, NY, has been part of an ambitious research
project concerning The Civic Legacy of the Civil
Rights Era: Exploring the Values of a Generation.
The study is intended to explore the
civic benefits of the Civil Rights Era that enhance
social trust and civic participation within minority
communities.
Using Westchester County as a backdrop, the project
investigates various components of civic engagement
within minority communities, with emphasis on
communities that are predominantly African-American and
identifies protective community factors emerging from
the Civil Rights Era.
Through community-based focus groups, selected
individuals are lending their voices and reflect on the
civic benefits from the Civil Rights Era. In June 2007,
Adelphi University approved the research initiative to
use focus groups in Westchester County, and the Fahs-Beck
Fund of the New York Community Trust funded the
initiative.
The project is significant because Westchester County,
like so many other counties across the country, is
attempting to address its issues with youth violence,
lack of affordable housing, and accessible preventive
health care.
Even though it is one of the riches counties in the
United States with it population of over 900,000
persons, Westchester County still wrestles with poverty,
social/economic segregation and class-based educational
systems. Too many youth are isolated from mainstream
civic activities in Westchester County and cutoff from
positive community influences. They often gain
membership in violent gangs - another growing problem in
various cities of Westchester County.
In the years since Civil Rights' legislations, many
community risk factors, like those previously mentioned,
as well as gang violence and child abuse/neglect have
increased in severity in many minority communities
throughout the nation, and particularly Westchester
County. Similarly, there have also been decreases in the
levels of social trust among socially disconnected
minorities. Research shows that youth living in
communities with significant levels of risk, and
disconnected from civic activities within the community
for more than two years, are more likely to engage in
juvenile delinquent activities.
The Era of Civil Rights (1954-1968) provided
African-American communities and the entire country,
overall, with prime cultural, institutional and social
examples of civic action and participation. The question
remains, have these examples retained their value in
today's society? How do minority youth and their
families benefit from the legacy of Civil Rights?
On Wednesday, April 2, a large group of Mount Vernon
volunteer seniors participated in the study at the Doles
Center, led by Diann Cameron Kelly, Ph.D., an Assistant
Professor at Adelphi University. Each senior was asked
to complete a very lengthy questionnaire on the research
project. In addition, the participants provided their
interpretations on, and reflections of, civic engagement
in the minority communities post-Civil rights Era.
For their service to the project, the seniors received
compensation of $25.00 as well as lunch.
The information gathered from the Mount Vernon seniors
will be compared with data from primary sources
extracted from Civil Rights archives.
Emerging from this study will be a roundtable of
experts and community residents who will oversee the
development and implementation of civic education
curricula in community-based, after-school and
family-health programs throughout the Hudson Valley
region.
Diann Cameron Kelly, Ph.D
