Ashlyn Herd
Denver, CO
In 2012, the top choirs at Denver School of the Arts took a trip to Boston, because we had been accepted to perform in prestigious settings such as Berkley College of Music, Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and Harvard. In Bellissima (our 33 member, 9th and 10th grade all women’s choir), we were mostly composed of young women who were white. We went through airport security as a group. By the time all of us were through, my choir director had to stay back while 4 of our members were chosen for further questioning. Despite nothing suspicious having come up on the scanners for any of them, they were they only four of the young ladies who were African-American in our choir. This occurred in DIA (Denver International Airport), which depicts pictures of equality in paintings along its walls. A few years earlier, it even opened up a section specifically designed to celebrate the Native American culture. How can we say that we are a society of equality when the basic rights of African Americans are still questioned?
