On the Road to Understanding

For 17-year-old Emily Pitlick, the Operation Understanding DC summer trip got off to a stirring start at Ellis Island. She and the group's other Jewish members reveled in the place that connected them to past generations of their families. At the same time, Emily noticed a different reaction among her African American companions. "They were upset," she recalls, "because there wasn't a place for them to go, where they can look up their ancestors on a computer."

Rebecca Stoil, also 17, adds, "For my grandparents, America is the place where they came to escape oppression. It represents freedom. But for African Americans, this country is the place of their oppression. That is a really different perspective."

Such insights are the figurative destination of a 25-day student pilgrimage honoring the Civil Rights Movement and the cultural heritage of African Americans and Jews. A few days into the trip, after dinner at a suburban Memphis chain restaurant, the busload of 22 Washington, D.C., teenagers head back to the college dorm where they'll stay for the night. On the drive, they laugh and argue as naturally as any high school friends.

But, amid the normal chatter about SAT scores, sports, music and cars, another thread of conversation sets the group apart: Discussions of Nazism and reverse racism, affirmative action and Hasidic traditions are daily fare for the members of Operation Understanding DC.

At the dorm, everyone lounges in the lobby on couches and the floor as group leaders Christian Dorsey, who is Black, and Melinda Pollack, who is Jewish, guide them through a discussion of their feelings and thoughts from the past few days. Sixteen-year-old D'Vaughn Spencer, who has grown up in southeast Washington, D.C., talks about losing his much-practiced cool that morning at the National Civil Rights Museum. The downtown Memphis facility encompasses the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

"I mean, I don't get that emotional usually," D'Vaughn says, "but I was standing right there and seeing the place where Dr. King last stood, and the bloodstain -- it just got to me."

He isn't the only one. In fact, the intensive odyssey, which starts in New York City and then winds through Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, is designed to "get to" all of the participants, one by one.

Rebecca Stoil observes, "It's the things that might seem trivial that really bring us together. I found out that Black people have as much trouble with their hair as I do with my Jewish hair. We both have frizzy, curly hair. That kind of thing really shows you what you have in common. And that becomes a launching point for deeper friendships to develop."

Emily Pitlick experienced a similar satisfaction when one of her Black friends used a common Jewish idiom. "I heard Elita say 'Oy vay' on the bus today. It was great!"

Operation Understanding DC was organized three years ago by Karen Kalish, a former journalist. Each year's "class" -- recruited from schools and congregations across the city -- convenes in January with a retreat and a series of presentations and cultural activities to teach the teenagers about their own and each other's history, culture and religion. The summer trip is the second phase. During the remainder of the year, the students give talks and lead discussions at schools, churches and synagogues in the D.C. area about issues of diversity and discrimination.

D'Vaughn Spencer, for one, is looking forward to sharing his newfound perspectives with others when he gets back home. "In the last few days," he says, "I have seen more and grown more and met more kinds of people than I have in a lifetime in southeast D.C. I already have a whole new outlook on the world."

For more information, contact:

Karen Kalish
Operation Understanding DC
2120 S St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 234-6832
Fax (202) 387-8488