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Dover 15-year-old eyes U.S. presidency

Ally Long recently attended ACLU Summer Advocacy program in D.C.

Hadley Barndollar hbarndollar@seacoastonline.com
Dover High School student Ally Long was awarded a full scholarship to the ACLU Youth Advocate Program in Washington, D.C. [Deb Cram/Fosters.com]

DOVER — After Ally Long finishes her sophomore year at Dover High School, which starts next week, she'll have already completed the prerequisite for her dream job — the class vice president wants to be president of the United States someday.

Long was new to Dover last year, but finished off her freshman year being elected vice president for the 2019-20 school year. She'll soon take the reins of her new position following some real world experience in Washington, D.C. this summer, where she was one of two students from New Hampshire who attended the American Civil Liberties Union Summer Advocacy Program. Youth ages 15 to 18 from across the country participated in the week-long learning experience intended to train the next generation of social justice advocates.

Long, 15, protested migrant family separations on Capitol Hill, met U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and partook in in-depth training sessions on racism, criminal justice and civil discourse.

"I want to become a lawyer and then become president," Long said. "I think it's going to be a hard path to take, but I think I’ll learn a lot going through the system. The whole government is rigged. It’s going to take a lot of people, a lot of Americans to say, 'OK, let's try to unite our country.'"

Long began to realize her passion for history and social issues during her eighth grade year in the Concord school system. The opportunity to run for class vice president in Dover looked like "a chance for me to implement my passions for helping the community," she said.

Long stayed in D.C. from July 20-26, alongside her nearly 800 fellow participants. Much of the program focused on civil conversation, and being able to listen to the opinions and views of others, she said.

"You look at a lot of our officials and they aren’t interested in hearing the other side of things," Long said. "You’re representing every American. You're not representing one party."

Now back home in the Granite State, Long is looking forward to hitting the ground running with her newfound knowledge about the country's criminal justice system. At the ACLU program, she learned about the "school to prison pipeline," where in poorer communities, she said, predication can be made by the second grade about whether a student will end up in prison.

"That's just insane to me," Long said. "I really didn’t know a lot about our criminal justice system, but I feel very motivated to speak out against it and learn more about it. It makes no sense why we would, as a society, see that someone has done something wrong, then put them away without looking into the reasons of why they did something wrong."

A common theme taught at the ACLU program was "people are not just one thing," Long said, meaning incarcerated people are not wholly the offense they committed.

"How we can help people and not just forget about them?" Long said. "As America, we should really be looking into helping families, rather than putting people away and isolating them."

Long is especially interested in the intersection of education and criminal justice — or how a lack of educational opportunities can result in someone finding themselves in the criminal justice system.

"It has really opened a lot of doors," Long said of the summer program. She's interested in volunteering for a 2020 presidential candidate, and getting involved locally with the ACLU of New Hampshire.