Jacquieta Beverly

Jacquieta Beverly just finished her final year of high school at Tennyson High in Hayward, but she sees this ending as her opportunity to do more.  Not that the seventeen-year-old hasn’t already accomplished plenty – at Tennyson, she was founder of the Action for Social Justice Club, as well as a member of the Black Student Union.  In addition to her on-campus activities, Jacquieta spends time with her younger siblings, writes poetry and attends local poetry slams, volunteers at her local Boys & Girls Club to provide food for families in need, works closely with Alternatives To War Through Education (AWE), and is a member of the ACLU of Northern California’s Youth Activist Committee – from whose parent organization she received a 2007 Youth Activist Scholarship.

This summer, Jacquieta will participate in the Howard A. Friedman Youth Project’s Summer Exploration for the last time.  Her experience with recruiters at Tennyson High concerns her.  “The first encounter I had with a recruiter, they came on campus with this big Hummer and our teachers at that time were on strike, so I just didn’t understand how the government has all this money to spend on a war and on recruitment when our teachers are on strike and our textbooks are all outdated,” Jacquieta says.  “It seemed that the recruiters had the run of the campus; they have access to classrooms and students in the lunch room. It got to the point where it felt like they were harassing students.  They would follow us into the lunchroom, offering to buy us snacks and stuff.  It felt like it was an invasion of our privacy.”

Come fall, Jacquieta will begin her study of political science at San Francisco City College.  She has long harbored dreams of becoming a civil rights lawyer, but lately also finds herself inspired by the prospect of teaching.