Baltimore, MD – Student Field Experience
Baltimore Field Experience
Architects of Freedom:
Balitmore’s Pursuit for Desegregation
As the largest free Black community of any American city in the 1850s, Baltimore has long been at the forefront of the fight for equality and civil rights. Explore the legacy of Baltimore’s African American leaders, artists, activists, and entrepreneurs in working to create a more just home in Charm City. Learn about the contributions of significant Baltimoreans such as Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, Lillie Carroll, Billie Holiday, Zora Neale Hurston, and Isaac Myers, in building communities that sought equity and justice.
Through cultural immersion, meet with community partners in various Black neighborhoods and critically analyze how different communities work to remain intact while facing continuing struggles around issues of equity, power and privilege, and segregation. Focusing on the themes of race, school desegregation, Black entrepreneurship, and Black neighborhoods, this program considers the impact of banking inequity, gentrification, racial covenants, and redlining on the development and retention of community values and culture.
Field Experience Features
Place-Based Cultural Immersion
Field studies include customized excursions to historic or cultural sites, tours led by community members, meetings with community partners, hands-on engagement activities, and catered meals featuring local cuisine.
Social Justice Activities & Critical Reflection
Social justice and critical reflection activities are incorporated throughout the program. These activities are designed to challenge students to make discoveries about themselves and explore their interconnectedness to the world around them.
Customized Service-Learning
Service-learning projects with community partnerships can be incorporated. These projects are designed to deepen student understanding of social justice through reciprocal community partnerships.
Pre-Departure Resources
Teachers receive access to an e-portal with short readings, videos, and reflective assignments to prepare teachers and students before and after travel.
Ongoing support from Nobis Project staff throughout the program design as well as post program.