Video: NJPAC Arts Education Releases 'America's Way: Hope and Justice'
Newark students ages 13–18 wrote the lyrics, with music composed by Grammy winner Mark Gross.
The Arts Education department at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) released a video of an original song written and recorded by students in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
The song, “America's Way: Hope and Justice,” is a collaboration between NJPAC's Arts Education department and Dodge Poetry in the Community, an initiative of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation that is produced by NJPAC.
More than 160 young artists enrolled in the Arts Center's Saturday Arts Training programs participated in the creation of the song and production of the music video.
The instrumentals are played by students enrolled in TD Jazz for Teens, NJPAC's signature Arts Education program, and the vocals are performed by students of the Arts Center's Musical Theater, Hip Hop Arts & Culture and Acting programs.
Additionally, the video production was student-led. Participants in Backstage Pathways, an NJPAC pre-professional program that provides hands-on experience in technical theater and live concert production, facilitated the recording of “America's Way.”
“Our young artists chose these words carefully: 'Wisdom, love and peace, let these be our aim.' In singing them, they're offering the rest of us a vision of unity worth working toward,” says Dr. Sherri-Ann Butterfield, Senior Vice President, Social Impact, NJPAC. “Through Arts Education and Dodge Poetry experiences our young people are learning the power of their creativity, and in the case of 'America's Way,' that power comes in their hope for a future that is 'me and you, not me versus you.'”
The lyrics were selected from poetry written by Newark-area students who participated in Dodge Poetry in the Community workshops known as Write to the Mic.
The monthly workshops, led by experienced, regional poets and Rutgers University–Newark MFA students, provide young people the opportunity to learn the craft of poetry and experience how their words can be a tool for self-expression and social change. The workshops are offered as both virtual gatherings and in-person workshops in locations throughout Newark.
A special Write to the Mic curriculum was designed for the 2025 – 26 academic year. Anthems, Identities and Future (the America re-Mixtape) discussed songs and poems about identity, belonging and patriotism written over the last century, from “I, too” (1925) by Langston Hughes to “The Hill We Climb” (2021) by Amanda Gorman.
Students were given the prompt: What are your hopes and wishes for the next 250 years of this country? They responded by writing poems that were published in the 2025 Dodge Poetry in the Community Youth Anthology.
Mark Gross, NJPAC's Director of Jazz Instruction and a multiple GRAMMY Award-winning alto sax player, composed an upbeat jazz tune that reflects the students' bright hopes for the future, and arranged lines from multiple student poems into lyrics for the song.
“'America's Way' turns the hopes of more than 160 young people into a single anthem,” says Patricio Molina, Arts Education Senior Director of Faculty and Creative Practice, NJPAC, who conceptualized the project. “It is a powerful expression of student voices, a reminder that the future of this country is already being written by the next generation.”
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