Ritenour hosts Gateway 2 Change Race Summit

Students from 38 schools came to Ritenour to discuss societal issues

Royalty Knight, Opinion Editor

Gateway 2 Change is a nonprofit organization created following the death of Mike Brown and the social unrest that followed. Today at Ritenour High School, 38 schools from all around the St. Louis area met to discuss things such as racism, sexism, xenophobia and other societal issues.

The facilitators of this event, motivational speaker Joe Beckman and Dr. Terrell Strayhorn, led the summit using team building exercises and personal stories to teach more about race-related tensions.

“Gateway 2 Change is an opportunity where people can come together, learn and leave inspired with tools and strategies. A gate is like a door, so it opens a path, or an avenue.  We’re opening a way to change what we all want to see in America and in our communities in Missouri schools focusing on race and talking about and embracing difference,” Dr. Strayhorn said

Gateway 2 Change was created two and a half years ago by Dr. Jennifer Tiller and many others in order to teach more about race related issues, but soon spread to many other topics as more problems arose.

“Following the death of Michael Brown in 2014 and the civil unrest that happened in our local community immediately following, my staff felt frustrated and wanted to do something to make a positive impact on our community,” Dr. Tiller said

Some of the Ritenour students who attended have been involved in this program since its inception, and have seen some changes over time in the summits.

“This year it was a step up because they incorporated motivation,” junior Reese Sherman said.  “This time it motivated you to go and actually create change, rather than just talk about it.”

Sherman also noted that there is still more that can be done after these summits come to a close.

“If we are going to get bigger, we need to spread out to the rest of the school.  The program itself does a lot of talking, but we don’t actually do anything,” Sherman said.  “Other kids in schools don’t get the opportunity to go there and they need that experience.”