NPR News

Note: As part of NPR's series on the summer of 1963, reporter Cory Turner headed to Jackson, Miss. to take a look at how folks are teaching the Civil Rights movement to kids who weren't a part of it — and making the lessons stick.

Much has changed in the past 50 years, since the height of the Civil Rights movement. But how do you teach the Civil Rights to kids who haven't ever experienced it? In Jackson, Miss., Fannie Lou Hamer Institute's Summer Youth Workshop tackles that question.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

In his speech in Belfast, President Obama talked at length about the transformation of that city from conflict zone to a city bustling with normal healthy daily life. He got the biggest burst of applause when he tossed in a bit of Irish vernacular.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Students lounge at cafes asking each other, what's the crack?

BLOCK: What's the crack? Translation, how you doin'? Are you having fun?

OBAMA: So to paraphrase Seamus Hayden(ph), it's the manifestation of sheer bloody genius. This island is now chic.

Once upon a time, it was MySpace. (Huh. Turns out you can still link to it.) Then Facebook happened. And Twitter. And beyond those two dominant social-media platforms, there are a host of other, newer options for staying in touch and letting the digital universe get a look at your life. And for certain kinds of sharing, some of those other options make more sense to tech-savvy teens than the Big Two do.

Google's "Project Loon" just launched in New Zealand — it uses balloons floating in the stratosphere to bring high-speed Internet access to remote areas.

Most of the death and mayhem that occurs every day in Pakistan goes unreported in the West. You have to be here, to get a sense of exactly how turbulent and unstable this country is. Nawaz Sharif has just assumed power on a promise to restore calm and order.