Freedom Schools
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Freedom Schools were temporary, alternative free schools for African Americans mostly in the South. They were originally part of a nationwide effort during the Civil Rights Movement to organize African Americans to achieve social, political and economic equality in the United States. The most prominent example of Freedom Schools was in Mississippi in August 1964.
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[edit] Foundation
In late 1963, Charles Cobb, a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activist, proposed the organization sponsor a network of Freedom Schools. The concept of Freedom Schools had been utilized by educators and activists prior to the summer of 1964 in Boston, New York, and Prince Edward County, Virginia, where public schools were closed in reaction to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision or, in the case of Boston, as acts of protest against discriminatory school conditions.
[edit] Mississippi Freedom Schools
The Mississippi Freedom Schools were developed as part of the 1964 Freedom Summer civil rights project, a massive effort that focused on voter registration drives and educating Mississippi students for social change. The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO)—an umbrella civil rights organization of activists and funds drawn from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and SNCC—among other organizations, coordinated Freedom Summer.
The project was essentially a statewide voter registration campaign, and the framers called for one thousand volunteers to assist in the undertaking. Activists made plans to conduct a parallel Democratic primary election , because the systematic exclusion of black voters resulted in all-white delegations to presidential primaries. These efforts culminated in the creation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Both the official delegation and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party went to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In December 1963, during planning for the upcoming Freedom Summer project, Charles Cobb proposed a network of “Freedom Schools” that would foster political participation among Mississippi elementary and high school students, in addition to offering academic courses and discussions. Activists organizing the Freedom Summer project accepted Cobb’s proposal and soon organized a curriculum planning conference for the Freedom Schools in New York in March 1964.
In 1964, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People opened thirty freedom schools in towns throughout Mississippi. The purpose was to try to end political displacement of African Americans by encouraging students to become active citizens and socially involved within the community. Over 3,000 African American students attended these schools in the summer of 1964. Students were usually approximately 15 years old, but student ages ranged from toddlers to adults. Teachers were volunteers who where usually still students themselves.
[edit] Political and educational objectives
The Freedom Schools were conceptualized with both political and educational objectives. Freedom School teachers would educate elementary and high school students to become social change agents that would participate in the ongoing Civil Rights Movement, most often in voter registration efforts. The curriculum adopted was divided into seven core areas that analyzed the social, political, and economic context of precarious race relations and the Civil Rights Movement. Leadership development was encouraged, in addition to more traditional academic skills. The education at Freedom Schools was student-centered and socially relevant. Curriculum and instruction was based on the needs of the students, discussion among students and teachers (rather than lecturing) was encouraged, and curriculum planners encouraged teachers to base instruction on the experiences of their students.
[edit] Curriculum
The curriculum revolved around The Curriculum Conference, which consisted of teachers and directors discussing the type of education that would be taught at the freedom schools. The teachers were to write an outline for their curriculum planning. They were told to keep in mind what life was like in Mississippi and the short amount of time that they had to teach the material. The curriculum had to be teacher-friendly and immediately useful to the students, while being based around questions and activities. Since the curriculum conference brought together citizens of different backgrounds and origins, the final curriculum outline was based around material from different origins and consisted of three different sections.
The three sections of the Freedom School curriculum were the Academic Curriculum, the Citizenship Curriculum, and the Recreational Curriculum. The purpose of these sections was to teach students social change within the school; regional history; black history; how to answer open-ended questions; and the development of academic skills. The Academic Curriculum consisted of reading, writing, and verbal activities that were based on the student’s own experiences. The Citizenship Curriculum was to encourage the students to ask questions about the society. The Recreational Curriculum required the student to be physically active.
[edit] First year
Freedom Schools opened during the first week of July 1964, after approximately two hundred fifty Freedom School volunteers attended one-week training sessions at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. The original plans had anticipated twenty-five Freedom Schools and 1,000 students; by the end of the summer, forty-one schools had been opened to over 2,000 students.
Freedom Schools were established with the help and commitment of local communities, who provided various buildings for schools and houses for activist housing needs. The schools were held in untraditional locations: parks, kitchens, and residential homes, but most classes were held in churches or church basements. Attendance varied throughout the summer. Some schools experienced consistent attendance, but that was the exception. Because attendance was not compulsory, recruitment and maintaining attendance was perhaps the primary challenge the schools faced. In Clarksdale, Mississippi, for instance, the average student attendance during the first week was fifteen, the second week was eight, but at any point during the summer the school may have had in attendance as many as thirty-five students. It was not uncommon for adults to attend class regularly.
Instruction was changed based on local conditions. In rural communities where students were expected to work during the school day, classes were only held at night. In schools that maintained traditional school hours, typically in urban areas, traditional academic courses were offered in the morning and special classes such as music, drama, and typing were offered in the afternoon. In many instances, entire school days would be devoted to demonstrations or voter registration efforts. It was imperative for SNCC activists that students would be invested in civil rights activity because this cadre of students was expected to remain in the state to enact social change.
At the conclusion of the Freedom School term in August, activists and students organized a student-led conference in Meridian, Mississippi. Each Freedom School sent three representatives to the conference to form a youth platform for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The student delegates discussed issues related to jobs, schools, foreign affairs, and public accommodations and proffered recommendations for the state party. By the end of the conference, students prepared a statement that demanded access to public accommodations, building codes for each home, integrated schools, a public works program, and the appointment of qualified blacks to state positions.
Freedom School teachers and students remained committed to the Freedom School concept. In early August 1964, plans were being made to continue the Freedom Schools during the upcoming school year, and some volunteer teachers had already agreed to stay. Students decided, however, during the Freedom School Conference in early August to not continue the schools. Yet students implemented the leadership and activism experienced during the summer in their own schools. Some students returned to school and demanded better facilities and more courses. Students in Philadelphia, Mississippi, returned to school wearing SNCC “One Man, One Vote” buttons—for which they were expelled.
[edit] Legacy
Part of the Freedom School legacy can be seen in the dozens of schools that hold the name today: Akwesasne Freedom School on a western Indian reservation; The Freedom School in St. Louis, Missouri; Paulo Freire Freedom School in Tucson, Arizona; and Saint Paul Freedom School, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Philadelphia has a federation of Freedom Schools operating a modern version of the Mississippi curriculum with an emphasis on social action and intergeneration leadership. Philadelphia Freedom Schools (PFS) are organized through a lead agency, Communities In Schools.
Children’s Defense Fund also operates a modern Freedom School program. This program is coordinated jointly with the Black Community Crusade for Children program and local school movements.In Michigan the Black Radical Congress in Detroit launched a campaign to create a model based on the Freedom Schools. All cite the influence of the 1964 Freedom Schools in their mission statements.
