“Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people and not for them. Liberation is like childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person, no longer oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom...

It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.”

- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

What is a Freedom School?

“Freedom Schools students discuss,”
Herbert Randall, 1964

In the summer of 1964, during the Southern Civil Rights Movement, forty-one Freedom Schools were opened in Mississippi. These schools were part of Freedom Summer, a project of SNCC, CORE, SCLC, and the NAACP. The goal of the Freedom Schools was to empower African American youth in Mississippi to become agents of social justice and critical democracy.

The Freedom Schools were based on the task of helping release young students from the passivity that schools and society had fostered in them, and in turn, providing them with the skills and experiences that would encourage them to build leadership for a movement designed to change Mississippi. Using question-posing techniques (the same techniques as Popular Education and popular theater), the Freedom Schools were a progressive and radical education project. For example, discussion and critical thinking triggers included:

* 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?

Such questions helped move teaching and learning to the larger realm of social, economic and cultural oppression rather than only the achievement of the vote.

The Southern Civil Rights Movement also launched the Citizenship Schools (crafted by Bernice Robinson teaching in an early Citizenship School; Sea Islands, SC. Highlander) for adults seeking to register to vote. Designed to teach basic literacy skills and to help build conviction around human rights, these schools provided a safe action space for adults to learn, share stories, discuss issues, prepare to vote, and become agents of change in their own communities.

Both schools shared the same principles—to teach confidence, voter literacy and political organization skills as well as academic skills. In Mississippi, the curriculum of both schools was directly linked to the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, recognizing that the schools marked the beginning of an extended period of social learning and capacity building, rather than as a decisive test of citizen participation.

Both the Freedom and Citizenship Schools were deeply inspired by the ideals of participatory democracy that laid the foundation for the social movements of the 1950s and 1960s. The life experiences and world view of the students were reinforced through the curriculum and served as the basis for developing knowledge and capacity. “The overall theme of the school,” Charlie Cobb (SNCC organizer) wrote, “would be the student as a force for social change in Mississippi.” The Freedom Schools’ major contribution was to implement a curriculum based on the asking of questions whose answers were sought within the lives of the students.

Bernice Robinson teaching in an early Citizenship School; Sea Islands, SC

For more information on the Freedom Schools, Citizenship Schools or SNCC visit: Freedom School Curriculum http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/ED_FSC.html SNCC History http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/index.html Ella Baker on the Web http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/mds/ellahome.html Highlander Citizenship Schools http://www.highlandercenter.org/a-history2.asp

Why a Freedom School in DC?

Though many things are different between the Deep South in the 1960's and Washington, DC today, the need for lower-income people of color to become a force for social change is ever-present. Serious changes are taking place in the political, social, and economic climate of the District. Very few of these changes directly benefiting long-time, lower-income residents—many of them actually undermine residents' ability to access their basic human rights to security, community, and a sustainable life for themselves and their families.

As importantly, city residents who are so affected by these changes almost never have a seat at the decision-making table. Once again, there is a strong need for capacity and skills building so that everyday people can create and implement a vision for change.

Since 2005, ONE DC has held Freedom Schools inspired by the original Freedom Schools of the Civil Rights Movement and other libratory educational models. In the ONE DC Freedom Schools of the last two years, residents representing various communities in DC – African American, Latino, Chinese, and many others – came together for a full day of interactive workshops to analyze the problems we face in the city – lack of housing, jobs, healthcare, etc - and to develop courses of action to create systemic changes that support the human dignity of all.

2007’s theme was “Taking it to the Streets”; the morning sessions participants developed a shared analysis of gentrification and displacement.  After sharing a festive lunch, we expressed our analysis, demands, and plans for future action through artistic means. We made puppets, painted banners, and developed chants and drumming patterns that were later used in a parade throughout the Shaw neighborhood, stopping along places important to the history of our people’s struggle to maintain their roots in this part of the city. The parade culminated in a rally and community celebration!