Black History Is U.S. History: Ask Us About Freedom Schools
Teaching for Change promotes the importance of teaching Black History all year with Ask me about: Freedom Schools commemorative buttons. Why Freedom Schools? Teaching for Change advocates for the type of learning and pedagogy used in Freedom Schools. Why the buttons? Because Black History is U.S. History and should not be reduced to the few names and events that are recycled in classrooms and the media every year during Black History Month.
About Freedom Schools
The Freedom Schools of the 1960s were part of a long line of efforts to liberate people from oppression using the tool of popular education, including secret schools in the 18th and 19th centuries for enslaved Africans; labor schools during the early 20th century; the Citizenship Schools formed by Septima Clark and others in the 1950s; and more.
The Freedom Schools of the 1960s were first developed by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi. They were intended to counter the “sharecropper education” received by so many African Americans and poor whites. Through reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and civics, participants received a progressive curriculum during a six-week summer program that was designed to prepare disenfranchised African Americans to become active political actors on their own behalf (as voters, elected officials, organizers, etc.). Nearly 40 freedom schools were established serving close to 2500 students, including parents and grandparents.
Recommended Resources
Teaching for Change Resources
Honoring SNCC’s 50th Anniversary Booklist
Black History Titles for Kids and the Classroom
Children’s Books
High School and Adult Books
Articles and Links
Education and Democracy (see entire Freedom Schools curricula)
Freedom’s Struggle and Freedom Schools by Charles Cobb, Jr.
About The Image
Staughton Lynd speaks with Freedom School teachers in Mississippi, 1964. Dr. Staughton Lynd, director of the Freedom Schools in the Freedom Summer project, speaks with Freedom School teachers in a theater. Seated on the second row on the far right are Nancy and Joseph Ellin from Kalamazoo, Michigan; he a professor of philosophy at Western Michigan University and she a homemaker. They will teach in the Freedom Schools in the Hattiesburg project–he at Priest Creek Missionary Baptist Church in Palmers Crossing and she at True Light Baptist Church in Hattiesburg. Nancy Ellin also supervised the Freedom Libraries in Hattiesburg.
Photo and text used with permission from Herbert Randall and the McCain Library and Archives, University of Southern Mississippi.
Your donation helps Teaching for Change provide teachers and parents with publications, professional development, resource lists, and lessons on Black History all year long.
Anyone who made a donation to Teaching for Change in the February 2012 received this one-of-a-kind button commemorating Freedom Schools and the importance of teaching Black History all year long.
For a gift of $10 or more, you can still receive your very own Ask me about: Freedom Schools commemorative button. Each button comes with a brief description of these schools for liberation so you can share your knowledge with others.
Help us give teachers and parents the tools to teach Black History and multicultural education every month of the year-–not just in February. Donate today and request your Ask me about: Freedom Schools commemorative button in the comment box.
