CiCi Ferrara — A young voice of calm on race

CiCi Ferrara spoke at a home-grown Black Lives Matter rally in Berne on Aug. 9 about what it was like to be the only Black student in her class at Berne-Knox-Westerlo. In this week’s podcast, her kindness shines through as she describes both the experiences she suffered through as well as the sense of common humanity she gained from her high school social studies teacher, James Lemire, another speaker at the rally. Ferrara recalls a field trip she took as a student in Lemire’s sociology class to a maximum-security prison where she and her classmates talked to two inmates who were convicted of murder — an experience she described as heartbreaking — and found humanity even there. Ferrara was adopted at age 5 by an Italian father from Brooklyn and a mother from Scotland who raised her in a household “really rich in culture” where she was taught the values of both politeness and open-mindedness. Two close friends at BKW kept her from leaving the school by listening to her and accepting her. Ferrara teaches now at an independent school where the children are encouraged to campaign for causes they believe in. Ferrara advises speaking to each other’s humanity rather than yelling or degrading or attacking each other. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.