Anytown, Anytown

Last night I had an unexpected encounter. Almost everyone in the room had an association with Anytown Alabama. Anytown is a prejudice reduction camp for high school students that was sponsored by the National Conference for Community and Justice. Most states had an Anytown, Metrotown or some version of the camp. Now that the NCCJ national office in New York is defunct and a number of other factors, the Birmingham office had to close its doors.

I have had an instant connection with people that were associated with Anytown. Anytown organizers were intentional in putting classes together of people from different races, faiths, ethnic groups, socioeconomic backgrounds and different parts of the state. It involved an intense week of delving into their souls and developing a lifelong bond with people who started as strangers.

So how can I spot an Anytowner? Usually, Anytowners have no problem stretching beyond boundaries of most of their peers. Their experience at camp made them face their prejudices in an open setting. The residual effect of this intense searching of the soul includes a new human being with a perspective on life that most people will never have.

So what am I talking about? Many people say, "I don't have any prejudices. I don't see color..." These statements are rarely tested. This attitude is self-reported. We never get to ask people who interact with them whether they behave in a manner contrary to their opinion about themselves. If Anytowners were in denial at the beginning of the week, they faced their prejudices and learned to overcome them. They were put through the test and passed it with flying colors.

In my world of training, we are doing well to get more than two hours with a group. In that amount of time, appealing to the affect is very difficult. Anytown offered 24 hour, round the clock, facilitated activities.

Next to my family and classmates, I would say Anytowners make up my close friends. The picture above is from my baby shower which was given by several Anytown Alumni, high school and college classmates and one military brat.

Back to the encounter on last night. When we found out that we were all involved in Anytown, we began to sing the theme song, Anytown, Anytown yellow, white, black, red or brown or something like that. We also did an energy check which was a series of claps that you have to hear to understand what I am saying. I was amazed that I could somewhat remember a song I learned in 1992. We went on to reminisce about our experiences. We will miss you Anytown, AL