Civil liberties, rights at forefront of teen's trip

SANDPOINT — A recent trip to Washington, D.C., left a Sandpoint teen overwhelmed as she spent five days attending seminars, engaging with lawyers, lobbyists, political activists and others to learn about advocacy on a variety of issues.

“It was rewarding, but I constantly had so much coming at me and so much information, I didn’t know how to process it,” April Radford said.

Radford, who is 17 and going into her senior year at Sandpoint High School, joined more than 1,000 students from across the country who participated in the American Civil Liberties Union’s annual Summer Advocacy Institute at the end of July. The purpose of the institute is to give high school juniors and seniors the tools to engage their communities on issues surrounding civil liberties and civil rights, according to a statement by ACLU officials. Some of the issues addressed in the seminars included criminal justice reform, voting rights, and religious freedom. The students participated in debates and developed media and social networking strategies while observing policy development on Capitol Hill, according to the statement.

Radford said she got involved with the institute because her brother went on the trip in 2016. She decided to apply for the scholarship this year, and after writing an essay on what she believes is her generation’s greatest threat to civil liberties is and why, she was awarded the trip to the nation’s capital.

On the first day, Radford said she attended a three-and-a-half hour seminar on the history of racism in America, followed by a trip to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It was her empathy that began to overwhelm her even in those first couple of days, she said.

“I am a very empathetic person, and I am grateful for that ... but that is how I process information and how I learn how to help people is by feeling what they are feeling,” Radford said.

Some of the featured ACLU speakers throughout the week included ACLU CEO Anthony Romero; David Cole, ACLU national legal director; Ronald Newman, ACLU national political director; Cecillia Wang, ACLU deputy legal director and director of the Center for Democracy; Louise Melling, ACLU deputy legal director and director of the Center for Liberty; and Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee well-known as a government whistleblower. Radford said she met Snowden via video conference when she went up on stage after his talk and introduced herself to him. She attended other seminars as well, including one by Tommie Smith, one of the two men who raised their fists in protest during the 1968 Olympics. Radford said she attended some shorter elective seminars as well, including one on discrimination and school dress codes.

The trip culminated in a lobby day and rally on Capitol Hill, where Radford said she met with Idaho Sen. Jim Risch. Radford spoke to him about facial recognition, as she said Boise recently approved $31,000 to put facial recognition cameras in Meridian.

“Those cameras target racial minorities, so people of color, and they also target people with long hair, which can be religious,” she said. “So basically they misidentify those people as criminals.”

Although Radford said she felt Risch didn’t give her and the others from Idaho his full attention, she found out a few days later that the mayor of Boise chose not to put facial recognition cameras in City Hall.

“So that’s good — I don’t know if that had anything to do with us or not,” she said.

Between seminars, Radford found time to see some of the sights in Washington, D.C., including the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Smithsonian Museum of Modern Art, National Archives, and the Korean and World War II memorials. She also got to see a Washington Nationals baseball game.

Despite the trip being a bit overwhelming, Radford said overall she “really did enjoy it and it was a great experience.”

“I just really loved the environment they created,” she said. “... We just really created a safe space to learn from other people and develop as human beings.”

At home in Sandpoint, Radford has been captain of the Academic Decathlon team at SHS and is in the Model United Nations class. She is captain of the high school dance team and helps teach dance classes. She will be teaching her own contemporary dance class soon as well. While Radford said she plans to go to college for contemporary dance, she also wants to do something in the area of civil liberties and social justice, though she hasn’t pinned it down yet.

“I need to think about that a lot this year while I am choosing colleges — it will depend on where I decide to go for dance,” she said.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.