YOUNGSTOWN High school students go to capital

Their first stop in the nation's capital will be at Howard University.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- High school students from Youngstown and Springfield, Ohio, will continue their research on the graves of black Civil War veterans during a whirlwind one-day trip to Washington, D.C.
The students, accompanied by veterans, educators and public officials from the two communities, will board a bus at midnight at VFW Post 6488 in Youngstown for the trip to Washington, where they will visit black Civil War memorials and other historic landmarks and memorials in the nation's capital. They will return to Post 6488 24 hours later.
First stop: Their first stop will be at Howard University, where they will meet with Dr. Russell L. Adams, chairman of Afro-American studies; Dr. IbrahimSundiata, chairman of the Department of History, and Dr. Walter Hill, historian of the Black Civil War Statue Foundation.
Students from the two communities were brought together earlier this year after local black veterans learned that Washington High School students in Springfield were tracking and mapping the graves of black Civil War veterans in the state, said Herman Adams of VFW Post 6488 in Lowellville.
Similar work was being done here by Steffon Jones of Youngstown and others, and Post 6488 invited the Springfield students to Youngstown to visit cemeteries and see the graves of U.S. Colored Troop members, and to recognize the students from Springfield for their work.
The Washington trip, to add to their knowledge and sense of history, grew out of that meeting, Adams said.