By ECYP Fellow Moss, Class of 2026
From Birmingham to Krakow, Selma to Prague, the Elijah Cummings Youth Program (ECYP) has taken me all over the world to connect with people and grow as a leader. Every story I’ve heard has pushed me to keep speaking up and to use my voice as a tool for change. When I think about our 2025 Eastern Europe trip and the 2026 Civil Rights Trip with the Social Justice Teen Fellowship program, I’m already noticing how many shared experiences come up when talking to people from different backgrounds.
Even though the time periods and events are different, I can see real connections between Jewish people in Eastern Europe during and after the Holocaust and Black people in the South during the Civil Rights era. One connection that really sticks with me is between Sarah Collins Rudolph and the JCC Krakow. Sarah Collins Rudolph survived the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. She lost her sister, her friends, and her sight, and she has spent her life carrying that pain. But she’s also turned that pain into purpose. By telling her story, she reminds us that these events weren’t “a long time ago.” The people who lived through this violence are still alive. They’re still healing. They’re still speaking.
Her resilience reminded me of the JCC Krakow. After the Holocaust, the Jewish community in Krakow almost disappeared. Many people were killed, and many survivors hid their identity, changed their names, or left the city because they were afraid. But the JCC has worked to rebuild community, raise awareness, and create a space where people with Jewish heritage can reconnect with their culture and history. Their work is also about resilience, about choosing to rebuild even when the past feels heavy.
ECYP is all about building bridges between cultures that might seem different at first. But the more time I spend in this program, and the more I grow with my cohort, the more I see the similarities between my experience as a Jewish Person of Color and the experiences of my non Jewish Black friends. Our histories overlap in ways I didn’t always expect.
The journeys ECYP has taken me on really reflect the values Elijah Cummings believed in. We’re not staying in one place or learning about just one community. We’re traveling across the country and across the world to hear from people from all walks of life and to learn their stories. And through that, we’re learning how connected we actually are.
