Irma McClaurin '69, Lucy Flower Vocational High School, West Side of Chicago
  (Photo credit: mcclaurin solutions)

In the summer of 1968, 140 students from inner city and rural America gathered at the Yale University Divinity School to participate in an educational experiment. White, Black, Puerto Rican, Indian American, and Asian American students, labeled by New Haven newspapers as "underachievers," were introduced to a "Great American Books" curriculum that included The American Constitution, Native Son, Antigone, and The Communist Manifesto. No one told them they weren't supposed to excel, and so they did.

The group of 110 boys and 30 girls (the first women to attend Yale before it went co-ed) participated in "T" (therapy) discussion groups to tackle the messy topic and tensions of race and social justice following the largest period of civil unrest in America after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Safe within the walls of Yale's Divinity School, the YSHS students, encouraged by the staff, found their voices and the inspiration to succeed academically.
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Original Post: 25 February 2013, Insight News