By JOSEPH SAPIA
The third annual Urban Youth Civil Rights Education Initiative for Asbury Park middle school-age students kicks off Friday, Aug. 7.
The group will watch a film on the 1955 beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement — specifically about the white-on-black murder of Emmett Till, 14, in Mississippi and Rosa Parks, a black woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white person in Alabama. A discussion will follow.
Friday’s event is at 9 a.m. at United Methodist Church at the corner of Third Avenue and Emory Street. Participants must be pre-registered or register that morning, according to organizer Tommy Earl.
Twenty eight students were registered in the days prior to the first part of the programming and the initiative can take about another 15, Earl said. More information and registration is available through Earl at telephone 732-604-6694 or email uryouth2013@yahoo.com.
Participants will watch a series of films before heading on an overnight bus trip to Washington Friday and Saturday, Aug. 28 and 29. The trip commemorates the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, held Aug. 28, 1963.
“We try to instill the Civil Rights Movement, then commemorate it,” said Earl, a Neptune resident who is active in the community.
Generally, the program costs about $9,000, Earl said. He was still seeking to raise $3,000.
