My name is Sadie Sprague-Lott and I am a senior at Science Leadership Academy. Every year we need to do a senior project, this is a time for us to reflect on our four years and have time to do things with what we are most passionate about. Through most of my high school career I have been analyzing and taking action against institutionalized violence even when I was not aware of it.

For my final project I decided to take a deeper look into violence in Philadelphia and how it was affecting people in my community. This took shape in a couple of different forms. For the first half of the year I joined a student organization called Philadelphia Student Union where we organized a city wide protest against the budget cuts which we saw as a form of institutionalized violence. During this process I was also helping to organize a die in at my school to honor Mike Brown. During these events that were going on nationwide I was also able to participate on a panel with other teachers, students, and police officers where we discussed these issues.