Operation Understanding DC

I just spent a few days in Mississippi covering the Operation Understanding DC program, which promotes education and bonding between African-American and Jewish teenagers. They spend a month in the summer visiting sites of significance to each group's history and culture. Class Thirteen visited Jackson, Sunshine, and Greenwood, mainly in the Mississippi Delta. They heard from civil rights pioneers and community activists (pictured is Hollis Watkins of Southern Echo), a Holocaust survivor at Congregation Ahavat Rayim in Greenwood, attended Jewish and Christian services, made pilgrimage to slain civil rights hero Medgar Ever's home... and learned about one another.

Transformation occurs between the ears, and is hard to depict visually, but I have attempted to show a glimmer of the process.

For more information on this exceptional group see:
www.oudc.org
www.lloydwolf.com/doc_dc.html
and:
www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0107&article=010720