National Youth Summit on the War on Poverty

On Tuesday, April 28, 2015, at noon the Oklahoma History Center will participate in the National Youth Summit on the War on Poverty, an online outreach program organized by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The event at the Oklahoma History Center will link middle and high school students from across the country in an engaging program centered on the history and legacy of the War on Poverty.

Approximately 50 8th- through 12th-grade students will come to the History Center to join in the national discussion with students across the country, after which the conversation will shift to local issues relating to the War on Poverty and its impact in Oklahoma. Local experts will help students think critically about poverty in our state as well as in their local communities.

In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson declared an “all-out war on human poverty,” pledging “the most Federal support in history for education, for health, for retraining the unemployed, and for helping the economically and physically handicapped.” Yet in September 2014, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 14.5 percent of Americans live below the poverty line. The National Youth Summit will help students to answer questions such as, “How do we assess the legacy of the War on Poverty? Do we need a new War on Poverty? What can and should young people do about this issue?” Students will talk with a panel of experts including Peter Edelman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University, faculty director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality and a former aide to Robert Kennedy; Marcia Chatelain, associate professor of history at Georgetown University and creator of the #fergusonsyllabus Twitter discussion on teaching history and contemporary events; Melissa Boteach, vice president of Half in Ten and the Poverty and Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress; and Michael Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

The Oklahoma History Center is one of five Smithsonian Affiliate organizations simultaneously hosting Regional Youth Summit Conversations with local activists, scholars and youth. Affiliate summit sites enable young people from across the country to participate in the conversation originating from Washington, D.C., allowing them to submit questions for the national panel through the webcast’s online chat and via video conference. Teachers can contact Rachel Kellum at 405-522-0793 or rkellum@okhistory.org to register their students for the Regional Summit. Participants can visit http://americanhistory.si.edu/nys to register and find more information.

The National Youth Summit was designed by the National Museum of American History to provide students with an opportunity to share their views and debate an issue, and the program aligns with the Common Core Standards for Speaking and Listening. Panelists and the audience will explore the history and legacy of the War on Poverty and contemporary approaches to addressing poverty and economic inequality. The program also will focus on the role of young people in shaping America’s past and future. Classroom teachers and other participants will receive a conversation kit, designed to provide ideas for leading discussion topics in age-appropriate ways. The project is funded by the Smithsonian’s Youth Access Grants and the Verizon Foundation.