In July of 2026, ERASE Racism launched its very first Digital Media Activism Internship bringing together nine student interns from Mepham Highschool Amityville Memorial High School, Freeport High School, North Babylon, Malverne Highschool, and Elmont Memorial Highschool. The internship aimed to teach young leaders how to channel their passion for social justice into professional, strategic digital campaigns. In just five intensive weeks, our interns produced about 157 pieces of content. This number encompasses 7 carousels, over 40 videos, and over 110 flyers or standalone posts. This impressive portfolio leaves our organization with an extensive library of resources to enhance our current online presence and the organization’s overall visibility.
In order to participate in impactful digital media advocacy, students needed to have a deep grounding in the history of ERASE Racism as an organization and structural racism as a concept. Students learned about the history of structural racism on Long Island, educational inequity, housing segregation, environmental racism and healthcare disparities, and much more.
The academic curriculum was heavily enriched by professional workshops and guest speakers, including:
- Local Long Island activist Monique Fitzgerald was the students’ first guest speaker and started by grounding the students in Long Island's history of native and indigenous populations. Citing her own experiences in fighting against a landfill, and now a proposed data center in her own community, Monique showed the interns how environmental racism plays out in real time and how one hazardous project usually invites more into an already disadvantaged community.
- Our Administrative Coordinator, Kara Pierre, led a conversation where students offered their personal uses and opinions on AI. This sparked an open and honest discussion of surrounding ethical AI use for education and advocacy.
- Margaret Echelbarger, a college professor and social media consultant, held a social media workshop with the interns. Students learned how social media serves as a political communication tool and built strategies to set goals, choose platforms wisely, and create engaging content. A central component in the workshop was audience mapping where interns analyzed how to capture, educate, and convert ideas to diverse audiences. By tying every framework directly to ERASE’s mission, students immediately learned how to apply professional digital strategy to real-world social justice advocacy.
- Students participated in immersive field research, including a site visit to Stony Brook University where they worked with Linda O’Keefe in a specialized Soundmapping and Climate Memories workshops to discover how auditory landscapes record systemic neglect and connect to themes of climate change, environmental racism, and even gender norms.
- Students also visited the Zuccaire art gallery where art became a way of understanding the complexities of African American history. Noel W. Anderson’s Black Excellence exhibit showcases themes of police brutality and black struggle while simultaneously celebrating black icons, culture, and accomplishments.
- Housing Program Associate, Nicole Grennan mapped out the history of housing segregation on Long Island, using examples such as Levittown to show how systemic barriers were built into Long Island intentionally.
- Guest speaker Dr. Martine Hackett showed the students how historical housing discrimination has left communities of color with a legacy of fewer doctors, less fresh food, and higher pollution, directly driving worse health outcomes overall.
- Salvatore DiVincenzo, Coordinator of Digital Services at Middle Country Public Library led the interns in a podcasting workshop that gave them a practical framework for launching an audio series, covering formatting, tone, audience mapping, and hands-on microphone operation.
In just five weeks, the students built a foundational library of content that will aid the organization's visibility, and deepened their own knowledge of strctural racism and digital media advocacy. Our first reel on Instagram already received 10,000 likes, 326 comments, 731 reposts, 570 shares, 436 saves, and 126,000 views. We also gained 1,315 new followers. This is the highest performing post the organization has ever had, and the numbers continue to grow!
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Below is media coverage of our interns: