Freedom Schools, which operated during the mid-1960s, were temporary, alternative, free schools for African Americans and other minorities. Prominent in the South but present throughout the United States, they were originally part of a nationwide effort during the civil rights movement to organize African Americans to achieve social, political and economic equality. The movement consisted of a series of programs challenging the inequalities of segregated Southern education, transforming learning into a tool for liberation and empowerment and providing knowledge and critical thinking skills, and continues to influence educational and social movements. Their curriculum differed from that of the public schools: going beyond reading and writing to explore African American history, civic engagement, and the philosophy of nonviolent resistance in the context of its association with the civil rights movement. They encouraged students to think critically and explore their creativity.
Almost 40 Freedom Schools were established, serving over 2,500 students in one summer; students also included parents and grandparents. Classes were held in church basements, community centers, or homes due to threats to safety and lack of resources. Most teachers were activists, and African Americans and whites contributed to the success of the Freedom Schools.
Origins
Despite the Supreme Court's ruling of 1954 in the Brown v. Board of Education case, which struck down segregated school systems, Mississippi and many other states, still maintained separate and unequal white and "colored" school systems during the mid-1960s. On average, the state spent $81.66 to educate a white student and $21.77 for a Black student. Mississippi was one of only two states without a mandatory-education law; many children in rural areas were sent to work in the fields, and received little education; the curriculum was different for white and Black students; the white school board of Bolivar County mandated that "Neither foreign languages nor civics shall be taught in Negro schools. Nor shall American history from 1860 to 1875 be taught."
Students faced more de facto segregation during the decade following Brown than before. Many white schools were half-full, but schools reserved for African Americans, Latinx and other minorities were overcrowded, underfunded and understaffed. In severe cases, students attended school in shifts to avoid overcrowding and accommodate the limited staff. Many schools showed significant progress in integration, providing access to better resources, higher educational quality and opportunities for African American students; test scores indicated that the performance gap between African American and white children began to decrease, demonstrating the impact of equal access to education. Some schools refused to integrate African American and white children, however, shutting public schools for years to avoid following the Supreme Court ruling.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee activist Charles Cobb proposed in late 1963 that SNCC sponsor a network of Freedom Schools, inspired by examples used previously in cities. In the summer of 1963, the county board of education in Prince Edward County, Virginia closed the public schools rather than integrate them after a lawsuit following Brown; Freedom Schools emerged in their stead. About 3,000 students participated in a September 1963 Stay Out for Freedom protest in Boston, opting to attend community-organized Freedom Schools. On October 22, 1963 (known as Freedom Day), more than 200,000 students boycotted the Chicago Public Schools to protest segregation and poor school conditions; some attended Freedom Schools instead. In a similar February 3, 1964 Freedom Day protest, over 450,000 students participated in a boycott of the New York City public schools in the largest civil-rights demonstration of the 1960s, and up to 100,000 students attended Freedom Schools.
Change was slow; many schools remained segregated until the late 1960s, but African Americans and minorities were closer to integrated educational systems with each boycott. Freedom Schools, led by SNCC and NAACP advocates, filled educational gaps; students were educated in churches, community centers, or homes led by boycotting teachers or civil-rights advocates, enhancing their understanding of civic duty in the fight for desegregation.
Mississippi schools The Mississippi Freedom Schools were developed as part of the 1964 Freedom Summer civil-rights project, an 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 SNCC, CORE, the NAACP, SCLC—coordinated Freedom Summer.
The project was essentially a statewide voter-registration campaign, and its framers called for one thousand volunteers to assist. Activists made plans to conduct a parallel Democratic primary election; the systematic exclusion of Black voters resulted in all-white delegations to presidential conventions, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was created. The Democratic and Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegations attended the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In December 1963, during planning for Freedom Summer, Charles Cobb proposed a network of "Freedom Schools" that would foster political participation in Mississippi elementary and high-school students and offer academic courses and discussions. Activists organizing the Freedom Summer project accepted Cobb's proposal, and organized a curriculum-planning conference in New York in March 1964 sponsored by the National Council of Churches. Spelman College history professor Staughton Lynd was appointed director of the Freedom Schools program.
During Freedom Summer, more than 40 Freedom Schools were set up in Black communities throughout Mississippi to attempt to end political displacement of African Americans by encouraging students to become active citizens and socially involved in the community. Over 3,000 African American students attended these schools in the summer of 1964. Students ranged in age from young children to the elderly, with the average age about 15. Teachers were volunteers, most college students themselves.Freedom Schools ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive
With few exceptions, Freedom School teachers were amazed at the enthusiasm of their students. One volunteer wrote home,
Political and educational objectives The Freedom Schools had political and educational objectives. Teachers would educate elementary and high school students to become social-change agents participating in the civil rights movement, most often in voter-registration efforts. Their curriculum 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 traditional academic skills. Education at Freedom Schools was student-centered and culturally relevant. Curriculum and instruction were based on the student needs; discussion among students and teachers (rather than lecturing) was encouraged, and curriculum planners encouraged teachers to base instruction on student experiences.
Kathy Emery, Sylvia Braselmann and Linda Gold, who edited Freedom School Curriculum, 1964, describe the movement's political and educational objectives as surrounding questions and activities that encourage discussion and strengthen the relationship between school and students' lives. The schools were student-focused, allowing students to think for themselves with connections to current events. Education had always been an integral part of African-American freedom, desegregation, and empowerment. After the Jim Crow era, education became a form of resistance in which the enslaved would receive education from Christian missionaries and newspapers. This gave them hope for freedom, and inspired resistance.
Curriculum Curriculum was developed with conferencing and discussion by teachers and directors. Teachers wrote an outline, keeping in mind life in Mississippi and the time they had to teach. The curriculum, based on questions and activities, had to be teacher-friendly and useful to the students. According to Josh Davidson, who contributed to an article entitled "Exploring the History of Freedom Schools—Civil Rights Teaching", "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". The Freedom School curriculum was intended to cultivate intellectual and life skillsnot preparing students for a world of labor in factories, but a life where they could be active politically: participating in democracy, advocating for their rights, and challenging the system of racial hierarchy. The focus was on questions and discussion, rather than the memorization of facts and dates. Instructions to teachers included
The final curriculum outline had three sections: academic, citizenship and recreation. Its purpose was to teach students social change within the school, regional history, Black history, how to answer open-ended questions, and academic skills. The academic curriculum consisted of reading, writing, and verbal activities based on the student's experiences. The citizenship curriculum encouraged students to ask questions about society, and the recreational curriculum required the student to be physically active. In most Freedom Schools, the citizenship curriculum focused on two sets of related questions for class discussion: Why are we (teachers and students) in Freedom Schools? What is the Freedom Movement? What alternatives does the Freedom Movement offer us?
What does the majority culture have that we want? What does the majority culture have that we don't want? What do we have that we want to keep?
First year Freedom Schools opened during the first week of July 1964, after about 250 Freedom School volunteer teachers attended one-week training sessions at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. The original plans had anticipated 25 Freedom Schools and 1,000 students; by the end of the summer, 41 schools had been opened to over 2,500 students.
Schools were established with the help and commitment of local communities, who provided buildings for schools and housing for the volunteer teachers. Although some of the schools were held in parks, kitchens, homes and under trees, most classes were held in churches or church basements. Attendance varied during the summer; some schools had consistent attendance, which was the exception. Because attendance was not compulsory, recruitment and maintaining attendance was one of the primary challenges faced by the schools. In Clarksdale, Mississippi, the average student attendance during the first week was fifteen; it was eight during the second week, but at any point during the summer the school may have had as many as thirty-five students in attendance. It was not uncommon for adults to attend class regularly.
Instruction was based on local conditions. In rural communities where students were expected to work during the school day, classes were often held at night. In schools with traditional school hours (typically in urban areas), the citizenship curriculum and traditional academic courses were offered in the morning; special classes, such as music, drama, and typing, were offered in the afternoon. In many instances, entire school days would be devoted to voter-registration efforts. It was imperative for SNCC activists that students be invested in civil-rights activity because this cadre of students was expected to remain in the state to enact social change.