On an otherwise bare stage, six high school students sat on six chairs arranged in a semi-circle. They performed a dramatic reading of the script they wrote together, a one-act play called “Sketches and Tales of Urban Mississippi.”

The tiny cast represented a group of characters much larger. Each actor played two or three different characters. In some particularly dramatic moments they emphasized certain characters by uniting in one strong voice.

The play was part of Eye To Eye, a collaboration project between New York-based Community Works and the My Mississippi Eyes project of Jackson, Mississippi. Students from Lanier High School in Jackson formed an arts and ideas program between New York and Mississippi Youth. Through this cultural exchange they learned that students from the North and the South are not so different as they once believed.

“I hope to accomplish the respect for rich Harlem,” said Barbara Horowitz, director of Community Works. “To pass on the tradition of Harlem by sharing stories to all people, all over this country to community.”

Horowitz found Community Works in 1990 as a volunteer-based organization serving just one school. Over the past 13 years its program has expanded to over 300 schools and serving more than 100,000 youth. Community Works sponsored Eye To Eye as part of an effort to allow young people to honor local heroes.

“I decide to pursue this project because our children didn’t know about our ancestors,”
Says Ann Johnson, the English teacher at Lanier High School. “They need to know that our people left deposits in many areas, especially in Chicago and New York. We hope to leave something for our students, for the future African American generation that’s coming.”
“Sketches and Tales of Urban Mississippi,” was written, directed and performed entirely by students with Johnson’s supervision. The play was based on true stories about migration and immigration gathered by the students through interviews with Mississippi residents.
“I want to let everyone know about the Great Migration because everyone needs to know
their history,” said Jeremy Hinton, 17, of Lanier High School.

The Jackson students first toured Chicago, then stopped in New York to see how Harlem’s local heroes shaped an important African-American community. As part of their visit, they personally interviewed some important figures from Harlem’s 100-year history.
Keisha Stokes, 17, another Lanier High School student, said that the trip has been a valuable life experience. “I learned that the places are different but the people are similar,” she said.