“It’s a program that was started during probably the 60s to take primarily young students of color out of their home environments, bring them to these elite eastern [institutions]. You’d get an enrichment program in the summer and then usually you were sent to a private, what they then called private schools. The program still exists. And it was another way of desegregating previously all-white elite institutions. It was also a way of taking the best and the brightest out of our home communities and sending them god only knows where.“ (Barbara Smith. Voices of Feminism Oral History Project. Interviewed by Loretta J. Ross.)
A Better Chance (ABC) program was a summer enrichment program started in 1965 to prepare Black high school-aged girls for independent and private school admissions and curriculum. By the summer of 1967, due to funding reduction from the granting agency, students participated in the summer program and generally returned to their community school. That summer, after her sophomore year, Smith served as a resident tutor. As such, she was assigned a student group with which she developed a relationship and tutored on subjects such as English, mathematics, oratory, and study skills.
