from Amanda’s winning essay…
“If I were to take a road trip, it would be to New York City. My friend Nick and I would drive there and stay for a week. A place to stay would be taken care of because on my previous trip I met a woman, Boyd, who lives in Brooklyn, New York. 
She is a close friend of my uncle’s and would let us stay with her for the week. We would bring sleeping bags and a change of clothes, since we need little else. You may be asking yourself why I want to go to New York City, since I’ve already been there and plan to live there in the near future. This trip would not just be a vacation; there are two reasons why I want to go…
The first reason stems from my appreciation and interest in civil rights and the Civil Rights Movement. In Sheridan Square of Harlem, there was a club called Cafe Society. It is there that Billy Holiday first encountered “Strange Fruit.” “Strange Fruit” is a song that became well known because of Holiday but was actually written by a Jewish American teacher in the Bronx. The composer, Lewis Allen, is interesting because his life became intertwined in the “red scare” after 
he adopted the sons of two suspected communist spies, Ethel and Julius Rosenburg. I want to go to the Cafe Society to see if it is still there or what it has evolved into. I hope to run into some individuals who can tell me more about the cafe’s history. It was the first desegregated cafe in Harlem, so there has to be some history there.”
In the summer of 2005 Amanda spent five days with Nick in New York City. Cafe Society was no longer around…but the two of them found the spirit of Billy Holiday on the streets of Harlem.
