The National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA) is teaming up with the New Orleans branch of Stand for Children Louisiana to take inner city youth on an educational civil rights history trip to Birmingham, Alabama on June 25.
The program will take up to 200 youth, ages 11-16,
and chaperones on an all-expense paid trip that will consist of a jam packed day filled with both educational and sporting activities. The first stop of the day will see participants visiting Rickwood Field, which is the oldest American baseball stadium that was home to the Black Barons of the Negro Leagues. Following their baseball visit, the youth will then go to 16th Street Baptist Church where four little girls lost their lives in a tragic 1963 bombing. After that, the students will visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and then the University of Alabama’s football complex for dinner and a speaking engagement.“This is a very exciting opportunity for NBRPA to join forces with Stand for Children to give New Orleans youth the opportunity to travel and learn about several landmark moments and places in the Civil Rights movement,” NBRPA President and CEO Arnie D. Fielkow says in a press release.
The trip is also
receiving a lot of support from the city of New Orleans as council-member LaToya Cantrell is making it her duty to help with recruiting participants and ensuring that any young person interested has the opportunity to attend.New Orleans Stand for Children director Dana Henry speaks further about the impact of the trip saying, “[it] will be an excellent hands-on, historical lesson for our students to experience and one that should help them not only develop a deep understanding and appreciation of the past, but also recognize the tremendous progress and opportunities they now have as a result.”
Stand for Children is a national organization, and Gates Foundation partner, that works to improve the odds for all American children and ensure that each child completes high school with the proper preparation and access to a college education.