Participants discover the power of their voice and are encouraged to view their voices as vehicles of social change. For two weeks during the summer, students meet at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum to participate in a series of instructional workshops facilitated by authors, speechwriters and other teachers. Throughout the program, students will practice delivering speeches, and as a culminating project, each participant will make an oral presentation to a local board, community organization, or school governing body. In collaboration with Urban Scholars, the JFK Library Corps provides a seven-week summer course on the Civil Rights Movement. Students study events and leaders of the activist movement, with special emphasis placed on the role of young people in the struggle for civil rights.
Students connect lessons learned to their own roles as agents of social change.
In collaboration with the New Frontier Society , the JFK Library Corps hosts an annual youth conference. The conference is designed to help youth analyze the major elements of leadership, strengthen their own skills, and increase their understanding of strategies and resources that will help them to address issues of concern to them. Participants have the opportunity to engage in a roundtable discussion on leadership and community service with local leaders. About our partners Urban Scholars is a privately funded program which works with low income high school students from Dorchester, Roxbury, and South Boston to help them prepare for college. The New Frontier Society is a non-partisan group of men and women, ages 21 to 35, who seek to promote a greater understanding of local and national political issues, particularly those affecting younger generations, and to encourage active participation in public affairs.