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Civil Rights Movement Personal Statement

646 Words3 Pages

I live in a world that constantly displays the ills and disadvantages that Black Americans face. When I entered college, I entered a child-- one that was indoctrinated with the notions of black “progress” throughout history, I found it impossible to believe that we lived in a structurally unequal society. I believed that with the Emancipation Proclamation, we ended slavery, with the Civil Rights Movement, we constructed equality, and with the election of Barack Obama, we could pursue our dreams, no matter how large they were. But as I grow, learn, read, understand and am exposed to the fundamental truth of these “accomplishments,” I find it difficult to believe that equality and freedom for all truly exists. I look to “Stop and Frisk,” a policy …show more content…

Holder, a Supreme Court case decision that has undermined parts of the Voting Rights Act, one of the bulwarks of the Civil Rights movement. I look to children in the South Bronx, whose abnormal rates of asthma are a result of their polluted and unbreathable environment. And I look to myself, and ponder what agency I have in ensuring that these injustices cease to exist. In this inflection, I see the TRIALS program as integral to my success in the endeavor to study Constitutional Law, and to develop an agency that will allow me to foster a better and more equal world than the one we presently live in. In this effort so far, I have attempted to learn and better understand the plights that my community and people of color across the United State face. This effort has brought me to an internship with the New York City Council, where I had the opportunity to plan and host events for underprivileged children and youth in Fort Greene, who would have otherwise been subject to the unpredictability and dangers of their neighborhoods. This effort brought me to the Food Recovery Network of Syracuse University, where I helped coordinate recoveries of excess food from college dining halls, to be delivered to homeless and domestic violence shelters in the Syracuse

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