title:  YMCA Camp Forces Black Children Through Slavery Reenactment
text: A YMCA camp in Jackson, Michigan forced ten-year-old student campers to participate in a disturbing slavery reenactment  activity. During the activity, which took place at night, teachers and camp instructors acted as  slave masters,  forcing 5th grade campers to stand on a makeshift auction block.According to the mother of one student who endured the camp s slavery reenactment: The slave masters (camp instructors and teachers) had certificates which allowed them to pay for the slaves, and the students were required to hold up the certificates when they were bought or sold. The students, who were chased through the dark by their  slave masters  on horseback, were also ordered not to look the adult participants in the eye.Tiffany Birchett, the mother of two Black students who attended the camp last summer, was outraged after learning that her children had been put through this ordeal by camp leaders.She emailed the principal of her daughter s school, Pardee Elementary School in Dearborn Heights, saying: My daughter came home after the camp. She was very disturbed, and she told me what happened. First, I was wondering if this was a ritual that they do to these kids every year they attend the camp. She told me the camp instructors, including some of their teachers, were dancing and happy before they went out to do this slave re-enactment. Birchett told school officials that her 10-year-old daughter, Mikayla, was traumatized by the YMCA camp s slavery reenactment, which is dubbed by the camp as an educational activity called  The Underground Railroad. She went on to say: As the mother of an African American son and daughter, I am dismayed that Pardee Elementary would authorize and condone such an extremely racially insensitive and damaging activity. Likewise, Regina Crutchfield, the mother of a 5th grade student at Jane Addams Elementary in Redford, Michigan, came forward to say that her daughter had been put through the same experience at the YMCA camp, and was similarly traumatized. My daughter said she was scared. One of the guys (camp instructors) re-enacted killing a deputy. They should not do that in front of a 10-year-old, and not when kids are hundreds of miles away from home. If they want to teach black history, they should do that in the classroom. As the Detroit News reports here, both the principal of Pardee Elementary School and the YMCA camp defended the slavery reenactment, which forced Black students like Mikayla Birchett and Crutchfield s daughter, Brooklyn Jones, to relive the trauma of slavery, even as their white, adult leaders celebrated.On February 4, Michigan ACLU Racial Justice Project attorney, Mark Fancher, sent a letter to Kevin Washington, the Black president and CEO of the YMCA USA, demanding a halt to the program.Francher wrote: Not only is the Underground Railroad activity emotionally and intellectually harmful it also creates a racially hostile environment that has legal implications both for the camp in its role as an educational institution or agent of an educational institution, and for the schools that send their students to the camp facility. The same day that the letter was sent out, Francher received a call from the head of YMCA s Camp Storer, saying that the underground railroad activity was  officially discontinued.  The decision was confirmed by the Detroit News.The ACLU issued the following statement, We applaud the YMCA s mature and responsible decision to terminate the Underground Railroad activity. The activity presented a risk of trauma for children who identify with their enslaved ancestors. We encourage further efforts to educate children about slavery but without re-enactments and in consultation with experts. According to the Detroit News, children attending YMCA camps have been forced to endure this experience for more than 20 years.Featured image from Wikipedia