Gettysburg College Students Explore Ike and Civil Rights - Eisenhower Foundation

Gettysburg College Students Explore Ike and Civil Rights - Eisenhower Foundation Blair Cox stepped into the shoes of Minnijean Brown, one of nine African-American students who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. in 1957, and admitted she refused to go down without a fight. Brown was the first of the Little Rock Nine to be expelled for retaliating against the torment the group endured every day. Cox, a sophomore in psyhology at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Penn., was playing the role of Brown in an experiential learning experience recently at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kan. The Gettysburg College students traveled to the Eisenhower Library to study Desegregation in Little Rock, a field trip enhancement program that uses primary sources and simulations to bring to life the key events surrounding the integration of Little Rock's Central High School. It is one of several innovative programs and activities offered by Ike EDucation, established by the Eisenhower Foundation, that are age-appropriate for students in elementary grades through college to enhance their knowledge and understanding of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, according to Meredith Sleichter, the Foundation's executive director. The experiential-learning leadership program engages students in a historical crisis as they role play the figures involved after studying original documents found at the Eisenhower Library. Donna Reynolds, Ike EDucator, says the program stimulates critical thinking, enhances research skills, and provides experience in public speaking and debate. Lessons on history, social injustices, and leadership styles are other benefits. It is the fifth year Gettysburg College's Leadership Institute has partnered with the Eisenhower Library to enhance students' leadership skills. Cox was one of three student project leaders, eight other students and two faculty members who participated in the immersive activity. Paul Miller, the Associate Director of the Garthwait Leadership Center at Gettysburg College, said the center was created to provide leadership development opportunities. The Leadership Institute is a semester-long, seminar-style program of leadership study through social justice, and specifically the Civil Rights Movement, with the goal being to inspire the potential that individuals have to create and attain positive and sustainable social change. The students study educational policy and political movements surrounding the Civil Rights Movement and the Little Rock Crisis, and the experience culminates with a week-long immersion project in Abilene and Little Rock, Ark. " This experience is to put them in the footsteps of those involved," he remarks about the Eisenhower Library program. Miller, who accompanied the group, participated alongside the students by assuming the role of Eisenhower's White House Press Secretary James Hagerty. Cox says she was fascinated by the documents related to integration, segregation and desegregation she found at the Eisenhower Library. "We were in the archives looking at different primary sources from Eisenhower's time and it was really interesting because we got to look at actual notes Eisenhower had taken," she says. "One of my favorite things was looking at a speech and typically the final draft was in the front but if you went to the back there were annotated ones where they had made revisions and it was interesting to see the actual primary source."  Among the characters involved in the Little Rock crisis assigned to the students for portrayal were an African-American student, the school principal, the police chief, the governor, and President Eisenhower. "My character was Minnijean Brown, one of the Little Rock Nine, and we were directed when we were in the archives to try to find information on our character," Cox says. "We talked about what role our character played in the whole Little Rock crisis. We talked about how complex desegregation is, and going along with this idea of roles, how each player influenced one another and how it wouldn't have had such an impact had all of the players not been there."   On the second day, each student took the role of their character, who they introduced to the class based on the information they found in the archives. A lively debate followed with various sides defending their positions on how to best handle the crisis.  The students also watched news film clips from that time period, including one on Elizabeth Eckford who, unaware of a change in the designated meeting place for the African-American students, was alone when she got off the bus a block from the school and was confronted by an angry mob opposing integration.   Sleichter says this program is just one way the Foundation reinforces Eisenhower's beliefs that, as he once said: "Through such leadership every one of you, at your job, in your home, about your community, can be a builder of a better America and a better world."

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