WEBVTT 00:00:10.402 --> 00:00:17.351 - Thank you all for coming today. Being that it's Sunday, I think the first thing I want to do is pass 00:00:17.351 --> 00:00:24.300 - a collection plate. But we'll get started. Thank you all for coming. And I'm one of those people, if 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:31.455 - you've ever known them, that they put on glasses so they can see. I have to take mine off so I can read 00:00:31.455 --> 00:00:39.230 - up close, just so we know. But good afternoon, and welcome to our third Brown versus Board of Education session. 00:00:40.130 --> 00:00:47.490 - For those of you who may not know me, my name is Jim Sims. I'm the president of the Monroe County chapter 00:00:47.490 --> 00:00:54.504 - of the NAACP. This afternoon, we intend to engage you in a learning experience that will inspire and 00:00:54.504 --> 00:01:01.656 - compel collective action in support of preserving and educating our community on the truth. To lay the 00:01:01.656 --> 00:01:05.822 - foundation for action, you will hear about freedom schools, 00:01:06.434 --> 00:01:13.595 - and what role they can play in this current atmosphere of inaccurate history and attempts at canceling 00:01:13.595 --> 00:01:20.687 - the fundamental rights and freedoms of our Constitution. I encourage you to participate fully in this 00:01:20.687 --> 00:01:28.266 - transformational opportunity. With that being said, CATS, Community Access Television Services, is recording 00:01:28.266 --> 00:01:35.358 - this event, including questions. If you prefer to make a comment or questions without being recorded, 00:01:35.778 --> 00:01:44.054 - Please raise your hand and submit your comment on a card from one of our staff members. Dr. King coined 00:01:44.054 --> 00:01:52.170 - the phrase, the fierce urgency of now. And the time to act is now. So let me introduce our speaker of 00:01:52.170 --> 00:01:54.398 - the hour, Dr. Charles Nams. 00:01:54.914 --> 00:02:01.556 - Sounds kind of weird to say Charles, as I know him as Charlie. And my name is Charlie. Is Charlie. 00:02:01.556 --> 00:02:08.399 - Got you. OK. Charlie is a professor emeritus of Indiana University's Office of Educational Leadership 00:02:08.399 --> 00:02:15.107 - and Policy Studies, academic programs, higher education, and student affairs, as well as the author 00:02:15.107 --> 00:02:21.816 - of From Cotton Fields to University Leadership. He is dedicated to the education and advancement of 00:02:21.816 --> 00:02:24.030 - the youth, both here and abroad. 00:02:26.882 --> 00:02:39.710 - I can think of no better way to begin today's session than to introduce you to my friend, Charlie Nams. 00:02:39.710 --> 00:02:52.414 - Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dr. Charlie Nams. Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you, Jimmy. Good afternoon. 00:02:52.994 --> 00:03:00.787 - Come on, now, talk to me, talk to me. You know, I was so looking forward to this, and you're acting 00:03:00.787 --> 00:03:08.658 - all anemic. Come on, talk to me. Don't take that, brother, okay? Look, I'm delighted to be here, but 00:03:08.658 --> 00:03:16.451 - more importantly, I'm delighted that you are here, that we're all here, okay? And the NAACP is near 00:03:16.451 --> 00:03:21.438 - and dear to my heart, so I'm gonna start with an advertisement. 00:03:22.338 --> 00:03:32.501 - If you're not a member of the NAACP, join. Join the NAACP. Because it is an organization that has stood 00:03:32.501 --> 00:03:42.468 - in the gap for a very, very long time. And given the situation that we're dealing with now, the NAACP 00:03:42.468 --> 00:03:49.406 - is more needed than ever. Now, I want to start with a few disclaimers. 00:03:50.018 --> 00:03:58.755 - Audrey, I call names when I talk, right? So let me just say, I'm neither a historian nor an attorney 00:03:58.755 --> 00:04:07.579 - steeped in constitutional law. I'm assumed to be octogenarian. Is that what they call it when you get 00:04:07.579 --> 00:04:17.182 - to be 80? Octogenarian, that's what I am. And I actually lived through this whole period of racial segregation 00:04:17.858 --> 00:04:24.674 - And we normally think about it as having occurred in the South, but it occurred right here in Bloomington, 00:04:24.674 --> 00:04:31.363 - Indiana. A couple of blocks from here, you go, not even a couple of blocks, you just go right over there 00:04:31.363 --> 00:04:37.987 - where the library used to be, where the colored school, and our good friend Liz Mitchell is here. There 00:04:37.987 --> 00:04:44.357 - is a historic marker on that site. Am I remembering that correctly? So if you have not taken a tour 00:04:44.357 --> 00:04:45.950 - of Bloomington, Indiana, 00:04:46.242 --> 00:04:52.550 - to be able to identify and see some of those historic sites, I would really encourage you to do that. 00:04:52.550 --> 00:04:58.734 - And you don't have to wait until Black History Month in order to do it, okay? I grew up in the Deep 00:04:58.734 --> 00:05:05.104 - South. I'm gonna tell you a story, right? I'm gonna tell you a story. Now, if you don't like my story, 00:05:05.104 --> 00:05:11.536 - that's your problem. It's not mine, okay? But it's my story, okay? So I grew up at the height of racial 00:05:11.536 --> 00:05:13.886 - segregation in the South, and when... 00:05:14.082 --> 00:05:21.676 - Brown versus Board of Education was decided. I was a fourth grade student attending a two-room Rosenwald 00:05:21.676 --> 00:05:29.415 - School, Julius Rosenwald School, okay, in the Arkansas Delta. And I have very vivid memories of everything 00:05:29.415 --> 00:05:37.371 - about my little school, including Ms. Beatrice Johnson, my teacher, who had all students in grades pre-premor 00:05:37.371 --> 00:05:39.902 - through the sixth grade, Clarence. 00:05:40.546 --> 00:05:47.852 - Pre-primer through the sixth grade. Now, you all call it kindergarten. That's a preschool or something, 00:05:47.852 --> 00:05:55.440 - right? But pre-primer through the sixth grade. This one teacher had all of us in one room, okay? I remember 00:05:55.440 --> 00:06:02.746 - the students in my class. I remember the gravel road in front of the school. I remember that potbellied 00:06:02.746 --> 00:06:10.334 - stove in the middle of the room that provided heat. I remember that single light bulb ding, ding, dangling. 00:06:11.106 --> 00:06:21.623 - to provide light for us in that room. And I attended that little school until I... that school was closed. 00:06:21.623 --> 00:06:31.746 - These Rosenwald schools were closed in my county. And then I was bussed to Leroy McNeil School outside 00:06:31.746 --> 00:06:38.430 - of Crawfordsville, Arkansas. Not Indiana, Crawfordsville, Arkansas. 00:06:40.706 --> 00:06:51.179 - And that's where I graduated from in 1965. At the height of racial segregation in my state and in my 00:06:51.179 --> 00:07:01.549 - county, we never attended school nine consecutive months. You chop cotton, you pick cotton, and you 00:07:01.549 --> 00:07:06.526 - went to school after the harvest was completed. 00:07:11.266 --> 00:07:21.003 - There was a legalized system. And I know people like to think about South Africa as having apartheid. 00:07:21.003 --> 00:07:30.548 - But apartheid was alive and well in the United States. Now, given this excessive preoccupation with 00:07:30.548 --> 00:07:40.094 - race, I want to start with something that I want you to take with you. Okay? First, race is a fake. 00:07:42.146 --> 00:07:51.406 - Race is a social construct, not a biological, genetic, or scientific fact. It is a system of classification 00:07:51.406 --> 00:08:00.238 - created by humans to categorize groups based on shared physical characteristics, ancestry, or culture, 00:08:00.238 --> 00:08:08.126 - and often to establish hierarchies, assign social meaning, and to justify power imbalances. 00:08:12.322 --> 00:08:23.833 - or anything else, I say, remember that. There's no biological, genetic basis for race. Now, genetic 00:08:23.833 --> 00:08:34.078 - variations exist, but they do not map to the rigid, socially created categories of race. 00:08:37.186 --> 00:08:44.672 - racial segregation was and is based on a scientifically false hypothesis which says that black people 00:08:44.672 --> 00:08:52.158 - are not as intelligent as white people. Pure and simple. Whites who possessed a combination of wealth 00:08:52.158 --> 00:08:59.717 - and political influence created policies, programs, and services that reinforced their theory of black 00:08:59.717 --> 00:09:03.166 - inferiority and given whites legal advantages. 00:09:05.602 --> 00:09:13.080 - separate but equal was never intended to be equal. And it was simply a way of scurrying the law. Now, 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:20.925 - you're gonna get your chance to disagree with me if you want to, and that's fine. We can have that debate, 00:09:20.925 --> 00:09:28.330 - okay? I contend that education, preschool through 16th college, was and still is a mechanism used to 00:09:28.330 --> 00:09:34.782 - perpetuate false theories of racial superiority of whites and an inferiority of blacks. 00:09:36.226 --> 00:09:45.957 - and court rulings undoing, busing the legalization of charter schools, anti-DEI executive orders and 00:09:45.957 --> 00:09:55.784 - passage of legislation in half of the states, et cetera. All examples of this misuse of education and 00:09:55.784 --> 00:10:01.854 - the reliance on race as a means of maintaining this imbalance. 00:10:02.658 --> 00:10:10.442 - second thing I want to say is that Brown versus Board of Education was not a single lawsuit. A lot of 00:10:10.442 --> 00:10:18.074 - people think that Brown versus Board of Education was a single lawsuit. It was not. There were five 00:10:18.074 --> 00:10:26.011 - lawsuits that got consolidated into one under the banner of Brown versus Board of Education. Now, those 00:10:26.011 --> 00:10:28.606 - states included Delaware, Kansas, 00:10:29.538 --> 00:10:39.642 - South Carolina and Virginia, and the District of Columbia, our nation's capital. Third, while only 17 00:10:39.642 --> 00:10:49.647 - states... Now, y'all know we haven't always had 50 states, right? But there were only 17 states that 00:10:49.647 --> 00:10:57.374 - really had laws in the book in 1954 when this landmark decision was rendered. 00:10:59.010 --> 00:11:12.387 - 17 states had mandatory legal restrictions around race. But all of the states practiced de facto segregation. 00:11:12.387 --> 00:11:24.670 - All states practiced de facto segregation. Including the great state of Indiana. Now... now, how did 00:11:25.762 --> 00:11:33.891 - white schools react to the Supreme Court decision in 1954. Many school districts completely ignored 00:11:33.891 --> 00:11:42.589 - the order. My little school in Crinden County in Crawfordsville, near Crawfordsville, did not desegregate. 00:11:42.589 --> 00:11:50.880 - Now, there's a difference between desegregation and integration, but that's another story for another 00:11:50.880 --> 00:11:51.774 - day, okay? 00:11:52.130 --> 00:12:01.187 - They did not desegregate until 1974, which was 20 years after Brown v. Board of Education. And that 00:12:01.187 --> 00:12:10.516 - was not unusual for many school districts in the southern US. White churches created private academies 00:12:10.516 --> 00:12:16.222 - to avoid sending their children to school with black students. 00:12:19.618 --> 00:12:27.871 - In instances where the course of ruling was taken somewhat more seriously, black schools were closed... 00:12:27.871 --> 00:12:35.886 - and the black students were bused to white schools. Rarely, if ever, were white schools closed. Now, 00:12:35.886 --> 00:12:43.822 - I'm talking about lived experience. I don't know if anybody... have you written about this, Audrey? 00:12:43.822 --> 00:12:47.710 - You historians? You all have written about this. 00:12:49.986 --> 00:12:59.460 - The other line is that black principals and superintendents were fired. Black teachers were laid off. 00:12:59.460 --> 00:13:08.748 - And that's that part of history that some people are uncomfortable with that they don't want people 00:13:08.748 --> 00:13:18.686 - to know about. But it's really important for us to know about that history so we can understand more fully 00:13:18.850 --> 00:13:31.058 - the kinds of things that are happening today. By 1975, there were 3,500, more than 3,500 white church 00:13:31.058 --> 00:13:43.386 - academies operating throughout the South. You hear people talking about white nationalism? Do a little 00:13:43.386 --> 00:13:47.934 - research so you can better understand 00:13:49.730 --> 00:13:59.894 - now and then. In Prince Edward County in Virginia, they closed the schools for five years, rather than 00:13:59.894 --> 00:14:10.058 - comply with the court order. In Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Warren County, they closed their schools 00:14:10.058 --> 00:14:19.038 - for a period in 1958. So here's my impromptu quiz for all of you. Who uttered these words? 00:14:19.682 --> 00:14:32.116 - Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. George Wallace. And who was George Wallace? 00:14:32.116 --> 00:14:44.550 - You got it. You get an A. What was it like to be a student at a segregated black school in 1954? School 00:14:44.550 --> 00:14:48.734 - buildings were poorly constructed, 00:14:49.218 --> 00:14:58.016 - equipped and maintained. Black teachers' salaries were as much as 50% less than their white counterparts 00:14:58.016 --> 00:15:06.478 - right down the road. Books and other learning materials at black schools had been previously used by 00:15:06.478 --> 00:15:14.270 - white students. I do not ever remember having had access to a brand new textbook growing up. 00:15:16.418 --> 00:15:23.629 - And you got the textbook, and the kid had written the names in it, how you write in the margins, and 00:15:23.629 --> 00:15:31.269 - so on and so forth. And that was just a given. The school buses that were used, they'd all been previously 00:15:31.269 --> 00:15:38.623 - used by the white kids. Everything had been previously used by white kids except the chalk. And that's 00:15:38.623 --> 00:15:43.550 - not hyperbole. Everything had been previously used except the chalk. 00:15:44.098 --> 00:15:55.442 - Because the chalk wears out. You can't reuse the chalk. My library in my school was about half the size 00:15:55.442 --> 00:16:06.569 - of this room. Half the size of this room. It was unusual for one teacher to have five or six preps in 00:16:06.569 --> 00:16:09.950 - a day. So I had Mr. Jefferson. 00:16:12.290 --> 00:16:18.450 - I had him for algebra, I had him for general math, I had him for geometry, I had him for physics, I 00:16:18.450 --> 00:16:24.795 - had him for chemistry. He was the only person. There were no foreign languages at my school. We didn't 00:16:24.795 --> 00:16:31.140 - have a counselor, but yet the school was classified as a Class A school, meaning that it had a college 00:16:31.140 --> 00:16:32.926 - preparatory course of study. 00:16:46.018 --> 00:16:54.398 - How did we get to this whole notion of freedom schools? Before we had freedom schools, there was something 00:16:54.398 --> 00:17:02.229 - called freedom summer. You remember that, Audrey? You're not old enough to remember, literally. You 00:17:02.229 --> 00:17:10.139 - remember that? Anyone else here from the Deep South? Georgia, Alabama, Florida, any of those states? 00:17:10.139 --> 00:17:15.230 - They call them Southeast now, Vicki. But they're the Deep South. 00:17:16.002 --> 00:17:26.268 - but there was something called Freedom Summer. You remember these names? James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, 00:17:26.268 --> 00:17:36.435 - and Michael Swarner? You remember what happened to them? They were murdered in Mississippi. Something 00:17:36.435 --> 00:17:45.406 - from 1964. Freedom Summer was organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 00:17:46.082 --> 00:17:55.428 - and the Congress for Racial Equality, those two groups. And I think he has some other partners who work 00:17:55.428 --> 00:18:04.594 - with him. And Freedom Summer centered on several things. One, voter registration. Freedom Schools and 00:18:04.594 --> 00:18:13.850 - the Mississippi Democratic Party. Now, do you all remember the Mississippi Democratic Party? You don't 00:18:13.850 --> 00:18:15.198 - remember that. 00:18:15.906 --> 00:18:23.962 - Well, go check out AI on Google or whatever your app is, okay? And you can check that out, okay? The 00:18:23.962 --> 00:18:32.337 - Democratic... you don't remember that? But anyway, you remember the convention that occurred in Chicago? 00:18:32.337 --> 00:18:40.792 - Did they seat the members of that party? They weren't seated, right? Okay, gotcha. That's enough. Freedom 00:18:40.792 --> 00:18:44.062 - schools grew out of that freedom summer. 00:18:47.170 --> 00:18:57.379 - Freedom schools were not designed as comprehensive schools. They were not designed to replace a comprehensive 00:18:57.379 --> 00:19:06.845 - curriculum in a high school or a middle school or an elementary school. The curriculum was focused on 00:19:06.845 --> 00:19:16.126 - subjects that inspired students to become agents of change. And there were three areas of emphasis. 00:19:16.546 --> 00:19:25.669 - citizenship, and recreational. Here's something I want you to take with you. Once you learn to read, 00:19:25.669 --> 00:19:34.883 - you will forever be free. Who said that? Come on, look up here. Come on. Once you learn to read, have 00:19:34.883 --> 00:19:40.574 - you ever wondered why people didn't want black people to read? 00:19:45.986 --> 00:19:55.277 - Why did they not want him to read? Why was it against the law, Audrey? Tell us. Because reading opens 00:19:55.277 --> 00:20:04.841 - up your mind to alternative ways of being and living, to read, to see it. Yeah. That's right. So reading 00:20:04.841 --> 00:20:13.950 - was punishable by lashing and just all kinds of mean ways of punishing people for learning to read. 00:20:16.514 --> 00:20:24.945 - Now, why was the Bible... they didn't have a weekly reader? You all remember weekly readers? Some of 00:20:24.945 --> 00:20:33.292 - you all naturally remember the weekly reader. They didn't have a weekly reader, right? So, what did 00:20:33.292 --> 00:20:41.722 - we learn to read? What did black people learn to read most often? From what? The Bible. And that was 00:20:41.722 --> 00:20:44.894 - the one thing that Massa would permit 00:20:46.210 --> 00:20:58.349 - You know, it was the Bible. Now, how many of you have ever heard of the end Bible? Don't be ashamed, 00:20:58.349 --> 00:21:10.367 - yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I tend to say the word because the word is real, okay? And in 00:21:10.367 --> 00:21:14.814 - real history, it's not the end word. 00:21:16.386 --> 00:21:28.121 - So I just have to use your imagination, okay? But there was something called the end Bible. 00:21:28.121 --> 00:21:40.877 - And they left out, selectively, certain parts of that Bible. Here were the core subjects. Intensive 00:21:40.877 --> 00:21:45.086 - instruction in reading. Reading. 00:21:45.506 --> 00:21:52.811 - Now, I know they have something now. They used to have it called Reading is Fundamental. You remember 00:21:52.811 --> 00:21:59.973 - that? Some of you may have had children who used that curriculum. Intensive Instruction in Reading, 00:21:59.973 --> 00:22:07.279 - Writing, General Mathematics, and Science. Language Arts. Students practice creative writing, poetry, 00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:14.942 - inspired by figures like Langston Hughes, and journalism by publishing their own Freedom School newspaper. 00:22:17.826 --> 00:22:25.459 - foreign languages, some schools offered advanced subjects not available to local black students such 00:22:25.459 --> 00:22:33.244 - as French. I just told you that I attended a school where no one had a foreign language. That was just 00:22:33.244 --> 00:22:41.028 - a given. And then Mr. Pounds, the superintendent, would come by and he would show up. That's okay, I'm 00:22:41.028 --> 00:22:44.958 - gonna move on, because I still get angry and upset. 00:22:45.378 --> 00:22:53.750 - People say, the preacher said this morning, should we get angry? You know, he used the scripture. 00:22:53.750 --> 00:23:02.804 - But yeah, I'm angry, yeah. But I'm not so angry that I'm out of control, okay? Students practice creative 00:23:02.804 --> 00:23:11.774 - writing, poetry. You memorize things. Rope memory was a recognized form of learning. When Melinda sings, 00:23:12.706 --> 00:23:21.317 - You know what, whose poem that is? When Melinda sings? Paul Armstrong. Published in 1901. I have a copy 00:23:21.317 --> 00:23:29.763 - of the book. Published in 1901. I wanted to bring it with me, because I was afraid you'd only tear it 00:23:29.763 --> 00:23:38.126 - up. But it's very fragile. It's very fragile. And I really do have a copy of it. But the handling of 00:23:38.126 --> 00:23:40.030 - it is very, it's very, 00:23:42.658 --> 00:23:57.424 - go faster dreams. Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes. There's a new stamp out now, Phyllis Wheatley. The 00:23:57.424 --> 00:24:12.190 - first black poet to publish in America. Did you know that, Clarence? You knew she was important. Okay. 00:24:15.618 --> 00:24:25.908 - Who were the teachers at freedom schools? Who were the teachers at freedom schools? Who were the teachers 00:24:25.908 --> 00:24:35.129 - at freedom schools? Talk to me now. Talk to me now. Who were the teachers? Just hold that one. 00:24:35.129 --> 00:24:41.342 - Hold it. Hold it. Jim Simms? Jimmy? Okay. Got you. Anyone else? 00:24:43.458 --> 00:24:50.984 - the majority of the teachers at Freedom School were white kids from the north. The majority of the teachers 00:24:50.984 --> 00:24:57.952 - were white kids from the north. Now, I'm not saying there weren't blacks, because there were, okay? 00:24:57.952 --> 00:25:05.268 - But this whole Freedom Summer meant that there were white kids from the north who were more progressive, 00:25:05.268 --> 00:25:09.310 - okay, who came south to help with the voter registration, 00:25:10.338 --> 00:25:19.598 - And obviously, you take Fisk University, for example. Marian Wright Edelman was one of those students 00:25:19.598 --> 00:25:29.220 - in college who was part of that movement. And obviously, she's a black woman. Well, she is a black woman. 00:25:29.220 --> 00:25:37.118 - But the majority of the teachers were white kids from the North. They were volunteers. 00:25:38.882 --> 00:25:48.720 - They had no health insurance. If they had it, it was by their parents. They were volunteers. And they 00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:58.752 - lived with the parents of the students they taught. They lived in the homes of the parents of the kids, 00:25:58.752 --> 00:26:05.214 - students that they taught. Do we still have freedom schools today? 00:26:08.610 --> 00:26:15.598 - Do we have freedom schools today? Come on, talk to me now. Come on, talk to me. Ms. Boone, do we have 00:26:15.598 --> 00:26:22.654 - freedom schools? The young junior high school, junior college, do we have freedom schools? Because you 00:26:22.654 --> 00:26:27.518 - have a piece that you've done some research on. Speak up a little bit. 00:26:46.402 --> 00:26:55.081 - So if we're gonna agree to disagree, there are freedom schools today. Somewhere in the neighborhood 00:26:55.081 --> 00:27:03.933 - of 125 to 100 freedom schools in the US, okay? And they are sponsored, operated under the auspices of 00:27:03.933 --> 00:27:12.785 - the Children's Legal Defense Fund, the Legal Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman. And what they do is 00:27:12.785 --> 00:27:14.174 - they get grants 00:27:14.594 --> 00:27:21.629 - from foundations, from individuals, the church congregations that support them, and that kind of thing. 00:27:21.629 --> 00:27:28.529 - And what they do is they bring in interns from colleges and universities around the country. And they 00:27:28.529 --> 00:27:35.496 - have worked, and they still work, with colleges and universities to get them to be a sponsoring entity 00:27:35.496 --> 00:27:42.531 - for the Freedom School. But they're not as widespread. But there are Freedom Schools. But keep in mind, 00:27:42.531 --> 00:27:44.222 - Freedom Schools were not 00:27:44.354 --> 00:27:52.486 - and are still not designed to be comprehensive schools. To your point, Ms. Boone, they are schools that 00:27:52.486 --> 00:28:00.540 - provide supplemental, you didn't use this term, but I use the term supplemental instruction, okay? And 00:28:00.540 --> 00:28:09.063 - that supplemental instruction is more related to the history, okay? So on and so forth. Okay? The Children's 00:28:09.063 --> 00:28:14.302 - Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman. One of her most famous books, 00:28:14.690 --> 00:28:23.540 - Letter to My Sons, is that the name of it? Letters to My Sons. So she has written this. She did. This 00:28:23.540 --> 00:28:32.563 - book is quite old now, but it's a wonderful book. It's still relevant. Okay? So here are some questions 00:28:32.563 --> 00:28:41.500 - that we need to ponder. But before I get there, I'm gonna share with you. How many of you attended the 00:28:41.500 --> 00:28:43.582 - 2022 Martin Luther King 00:28:44.034 --> 00:28:55.186 - celebration at the Busker Chumley. If you did, you will have in your program an initiative. And that 00:28:55.186 --> 00:29:06.228 - initiative is called the one, I need to get up here so you can hear me. It has something called the 00:29:06.228 --> 00:29:12.190 - one community curriculum overview, the one community. 00:29:13.890 --> 00:29:23.109 - one community. And I knew I remember seeing this someplace. And this is very much akin to what a freedom 00:29:23.109 --> 00:29:32.329 - school curriculum might look like. And they have an initiative, first grade, envisioning a better world. 00:29:32.329 --> 00:29:37.246 - Third grade, conflict, second grade, fair versus equal. 00:29:39.170 --> 00:29:47.428 - A lot of people tend to think about fairness and equal being the same. You know, treating everybody 00:29:47.428 --> 00:29:55.769 - the same. And they say, that's fair. Treat everyone the same, and that's fair. Third grade, conflict 00:29:55.769 --> 00:30:04.605 - resolution. Fourth grade, who am I? Exploring identity. Fifth grade, bias awareness. Sixth grade, strength 00:30:04.605 --> 00:30:08.734 - in unity. Now, I'm lifting this up as an example. 00:30:09.186 --> 00:30:17.807 - And Gloria Howell shared with me a much more expansive kind of curriculum guide that the people who 00:30:17.807 --> 00:30:26.428 - were on that commission actually worked to develop. And this was implemented in a couple of, not in 00:30:26.428 --> 00:30:35.135 - the public schools in Bloomington, but at the Montessori School, as I recall. And what was the other 00:30:35.135 --> 00:30:38.238 - school, Gloria? The project school. 00:30:38.754 --> 00:30:45.557 - Okay. Now, why am I lifting this up? Okay. I'm not suggesting, and I want to make sure that I don't, 00:30:45.557 --> 00:30:52.495 - you don't leave here thinking that Charlie Nelms is recommending that we replace public education with 00:30:52.495 --> 00:30:59.366 - a volunteer system, okay, that is not a comprehensive system of education and so on and so forth. But 00:30:59.366 --> 00:31:06.102 - I do want you to leave here thinking that just because you do public education that you have really 00:31:06.102 --> 00:31:08.190 - received a complete education. 00:31:08.610 --> 00:31:16.672 - That's what I want you to leave here with, okay? And so, we have the opportunity to provide more of 00:31:16.672 --> 00:31:25.057 - a supplemental kind of education, okay? Anyone have any questions about that now? Okay. Because there's 00:31:25.057 --> 00:31:33.442 - certain requirements that you have to meet in order to satisfy state requirements in terms of education 00:31:33.442 --> 00:31:36.990 - and so on and so forth. And I'm not here to 00:31:37.122 --> 00:31:45.736 - beat up on that, I'm just simply saying it's not a complete form of education. And we need to make sure 00:31:45.736 --> 00:31:53.688 - that young people leave with a more comprehensive knowledge base, okay? Clary, you can tell me. 00:31:53.688 --> 00:32:02.136 - Clary Knox, our Sunday school classmates. So is there current, here's a question for you. Here are my 00:32:02.136 --> 00:32:03.710 - questions for you. 00:32:04.994 --> 00:32:15.005 - is there a current knowledge void, a need that freedom schools can fill? So I want us to substitute 00:32:15.005 --> 00:32:25.518 - for freedom schools, I want us to substitute Summer Academy or Freedom Academy. So we make a distinction 00:32:25.518 --> 00:32:32.926 - between some things, okay? Is there a current knowledge void or need that 00:32:33.250 --> 00:32:44.078 - Let's just call them freedom schools, that freedom schools can mean. Liz Mitchell. That's your question. 00:32:44.078 --> 00:32:54.803 - Okay, think about it. I'll come back to you. I'm not in a hurry. I'll come back to you. Clarence Boone. 00:32:54.803 --> 00:32:59.134 - Here's your question. Are there selective 00:32:59.234 --> 00:33:10.873 - of freedom of the freedom school curriculum that we can effectively and more successfully address are 00:33:10.873 --> 00:33:22.512 - there selective components of the freedom schools curriculum that we can effectively and successfully 00:33:22.512 --> 00:33:25.022 - address yeah yeah yes 00:33:25.282 --> 00:33:32.817 - discussions on really a black history component. Try to introduce that in some schools and they have 00:33:32.817 --> 00:33:40.500 - to mention things. Yeah. So what do you say to people, say you just need to get over it. Why can't you 00:33:40.500 --> 00:33:48.259 - just, why do you keep dwelling on history? There's black history. Slavery was a long time ago. I didn't 00:33:48.259 --> 00:33:53.406 - have anything to do with it. Yes, ma'am. Speak up just a little bit. 00:34:01.058 --> 00:34:11.902 - and a bit slower among blacks than among whites and numerous economic, certainly, disparities 00:34:35.778 --> 00:34:45.444 - Yes, yes, Mrs. Moon. Speak up just a little bit. The senior citizen had a difficult hearing. Come on. 00:34:45.444 --> 00:34:55.016 - If we implement teachings at the freedom school, it could help us learn from our past and understand 00:34:55.016 --> 00:35:05.630 - that certain politicians or something, see that if they pass legislation, how that could revert us to the past. 00:35:05.922 --> 00:35:16.026 - Like, I feel like it would help us learn from our past and make for a better future for the generations. 00:35:16.026 --> 00:35:25.937 - OK. OK. Thank you. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Well, black history is being erased. I mean, that's fine. We don't 00:35:25.937 --> 00:35:31.614 - have white history. Why do you want to have black history? 00:35:38.178 --> 00:35:49.181 - Now, I'm not saying you don't need black history. I'm just throwing out. I mean, obviously, I'm not 00:35:49.181 --> 00:36:00.403 - saying that. I mean, I don't want anyone to leave here thinking I'm saying that. But there are people 00:36:00.403 --> 00:36:02.494 - who say, you know, 00:36:04.290 --> 00:36:11.451 - Why do you keep dwelling on this black history? I didn't have any slaves. I didn't discriminate against 00:36:11.451 --> 00:36:18.198 - anybody. So what do you say to that? I think we can't understand anything that's going on without 00:36:18.198 --> 00:36:25.084 - understanding the full history of the country. I mean, I don't think it's this piece or that piece. 00:36:25.084 --> 00:36:30.110 - Sure. If we don't recognize what happened here, how do we have any idea? 00:36:36.802 --> 00:36:44.648 - I think it's just not black history. It's the history of our United States. So I think it's something 00:36:44.648 --> 00:36:52.418 - that we all need to learn because it wasn't just white men who helped make our country great. It was 00:36:52.418 --> 00:37:00.264 - black men and women as well. Yes, ma'am. I think that it's a saying that if you don't learn from your 00:37:00.264 --> 00:37:05.726 - history, you're going to repeat it. And so the questions we don't need 00:37:05.890 --> 00:37:11.612 - Why do you have black history and they have white history? Well, white history is what we all learn 00:37:11.612 --> 00:37:17.848 - in school, right? White men discovered everything, right? They came to this country and they got discovered. 00:37:17.848 --> 00:37:23.627 - Never mind the people that lived here, right? They say, well, the South, and this country was built, 00:37:23.627 --> 00:37:29.520 - you know, it was good old, you know, Carnegie and the Ford family and all those people, but it was the 00:37:29.520 --> 00:37:31.294 - free labor from the South that 00:37:31.394 --> 00:37:38.020 - was the foundation for all the work that they did. So if you don't mention that, then it's like magical. 00:37:38.020 --> 00:37:44.520 - Something magical happened. They all got rich from magic. So you have to say, no, they had free labor. 00:37:44.520 --> 00:37:51.020 - It was black magic. Yeah. So that's the importance of the history. To say that we're not going to have 00:37:51.020 --> 00:37:54.302 - black history, we're going to have factual history. 00:38:01.698 --> 00:38:08.213 - No crowns, I'm not going to call you that. I'm going to get you ready. Because the big insult was a 00:38:08.213 --> 00:38:14.792 - slap in the face from former Senate majority leader, Mr. McConnell, said, I didn't own slaves, but I 00:38:14.792 --> 00:38:21.307 - can't say that my great grandfather didn't. He probably did. And there's nothing I can do about it. 00:38:21.307 --> 00:38:27.692 - And it's deep southern role. And I had to process it. And then we jumped ahead to a future where, 00:38:27.692 --> 00:38:30.558 - as she said, they're erasing black history. 00:38:32.482 --> 00:38:45.446 - Let me suggest a way to think about it a little differently. They're selectively erasing history. History 00:38:45.446 --> 00:38:56.942 - is being selectively erased. Not just black history, but history is being selectively erased. 00:38:56.942 --> 00:39:02.078 - Disproportionately perhaps black history. 00:39:03.394 --> 00:39:11.858 - If they say there are certain books you can, cannot read, they have to be banned, and so on and so forth, 00:39:11.858 --> 00:39:20.163 - OK? But it is American history, I think, which is the point that I understand you, Doris, to be making. 00:39:20.163 --> 00:39:28.228 - Is it American history? Is it American history? American history, yes. OK. I just want to know. Yes, 00:39:28.228 --> 00:39:31.582 - ma'am. Well, I just think that, you know, 00:39:34.178 --> 00:39:46.692 - that one of the consequences of having had slavery in this country is that people of color are still 00:39:46.692 --> 00:39:59.701 - held under. And until those consequences are resolved, you can't move beyond the need for black history. 00:39:59.701 --> 00:40:03.294 - The stories need to be told. 00:40:03.778 --> 00:40:15.647 - So that people have an understanding. And it's the unfairness that continues through our old country. 00:40:15.647 --> 00:40:27.632 - It's just. Yeah. So the first step is acknowledgement, I guess. That's my takeaway from what you said. 00:40:27.632 --> 00:40:32.286 - The first step is to acknowledge. Yeah. 00:40:32.450 --> 00:40:39.439 - And don't mean to put words in your mouth. The White House was built with slave labor. Yeah. Among other 00:40:39.439 --> 00:40:45.962 - institutions. They're going to tear it down and make America great again. I just had to say that. 00:40:45.962 --> 00:40:52.817 - But anyway, I'm going to hold it for her. But I got what you're going to. So I'm going to head to Liz, 00:40:52.817 --> 00:40:59.606 - and then I'm going to go to the masked woman next to Liz. Well, there are some people that just don't 00:40:59.606 --> 00:41:01.470 - want to feel uncomfortable. 00:41:02.242 --> 00:41:09.950 - And if they believe the narrative that their particular race is going to be wiped out in about 20 years, 00:41:09.950 --> 00:41:17.657 - and they're going to receive their comeuppance, it's I'm going down. I'm not going down without a fight. 00:41:17.657 --> 00:41:25.218 - And it seems to me that's where we are now. I'm not going out without a fight. My people came here and 00:41:25.218 --> 00:41:30.430 - made this country what it is today. And I've got to preserve that. OK. 00:41:35.170 --> 00:41:41.616 - talking about slavery, talk about slavery and anything like that, that makes me uncomfortable. We're 00:41:41.616 --> 00:41:48.063 - not going to do that. But why are you uncomfortable, Liz? Guilty. But why are you guilty? You didn't 00:41:48.063 --> 00:41:54.445 - own any slaves. We don't want to talk about the negatives. We only want to talk about the positives 00:41:54.445 --> 00:42:00.062 - at this point. OK, I'm just asking. If that's a negative issue, we can't talk about it. 00:42:02.146 --> 00:42:10.764 - All right, I'm gonna come to you. I know you're anxious to say something. I see you on the edge of your 00:42:10.764 --> 00:42:19.217 - seat, but anyway. Ms. Bridgewater. When they ask the question, why can't you just let go of the past, 00:42:19.217 --> 00:42:27.670 - meaning the past that is linked to people of color, the past is present. The same racism they used to 00:42:27.670 --> 00:42:32.062 - justify slavery is the same racism they use today to 00:42:33.090 --> 00:42:42.322 - justify inequities in housing practices, inequities in employment practices, the health care issues, 00:42:42.322 --> 00:42:51.462 - but it's now, how do you say, not overt, but covert. But it's the same foundational racism that has 00:42:51.462 --> 00:43:00.968 - institutionalized the discrimination that people of color deal with, fight against, struggle with, live 00:43:00.968 --> 00:43:02.430 - with every day. 00:43:02.626 --> 00:43:11.912 - OK. Yeah. So let me just say, I just got to ask you, what is a person of color? Help me. Help me. 00:43:11.912 --> 00:43:20.724 - Help me. Help me. Help me. What's a person of color? Black and brown. Huh? It's a euphemism. 00:43:20.724 --> 00:43:30.483 - It's not white. Yeah. Hold that thought. Hold that thought. Audrey? That's not a whole new thing. That 00:43:30.483 --> 00:43:32.094 - was a new thing. 00:43:32.642 --> 00:43:39.582 - But I was one drop loose to the writing. Well, I was going to go over what Liz was saying. And I want 00:43:39.582 --> 00:43:46.386 - to quote a very famous American, one of the best American novelists. And I'm not talking about Tony 00:43:46.386 --> 00:43:53.258 - Morrison, who is my favorite. I'm talking about William Faulkner, a Mississippian. He had the quote, 00:43:53.258 --> 00:44:01.150 - that the past is never dead. It's not even the past. And this is a Mississippian. We know what Mississippian means. 00:44:01.602 --> 00:44:08.786 - So he understood the volume of the history that began in slavery is always here. It's not past, 00:44:08.786 --> 00:44:16.345 - it's not dead. Because where did white supremacy come from? Where did it come from, Tyler? Where did 00:44:16.345 --> 00:44:24.053 - you ask people? White supremacy. How did that generate itself? How did people say all of a sudden, I'm 00:44:24.053 --> 00:44:28.094 - better than you, I'm white? Where did that come from? 00:44:31.074 --> 00:44:40.760 - It came from white people who were born with privilege and they wanted to make sure that they continued 00:44:40.760 --> 00:44:50.074 - to have that privilege. So it was this kind of philosophy that they perpetrated through the passage 00:44:50.074 --> 00:44:58.270 - of laws and rules and regulations which ceded power to them in a perpetual kind of way. 00:44:59.138 --> 00:45:06.270 - So when people say, let's make America great again, so where did it come from? It came from the very 00:45:06.270 --> 00:45:13.330 - people who wanted to preserve and perpetuate their status. So what would you say? Where did it come 00:45:13.330 --> 00:45:21.097 - from? Well, I agree with you, but I think it was more systematic than that. More systematic? More systematic, 00:45:21.097 --> 00:45:23.710 - yeah. I think you had pillars of it. 00:45:24.386 --> 00:45:30.617 - First you had the Bible that you said they had another version for us. So you could justify, it was 00:45:30.617 --> 00:45:37.036 - in the Bible, you could justify Ham and his descendants as being inferior. Then you had pseudoscience. 00:45:37.036 --> 00:45:43.517 - So these eminent scientists, and they're still doing it today. Did you read in the New York Times about 00:45:43.517 --> 00:45:50.184 - this study that got under the wire, where they're separating black kids and measuring their brains against 00:45:50.184 --> 00:45:52.926 - white kids? So it's still that kind of neo, 00:45:53.314 --> 00:46:10.103 - I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. Now, I missed somebody a long time ago. I want 00:46:10.103 --> 00:46:22.238 - to come back. I don't know your name, but pardon me for pointing at you. 00:46:22.498 --> 00:46:31.201 - But had you finished what you were saying? I don't know how well thought out it was. I would have to 00:46:31.201 --> 00:46:39.817 - think some more. But I would say, I grew up in Indiana. And when we were young adults, he had a job 00:46:39.817 --> 00:46:46.366 - opportunity in Memphis, Tennessee. And we were shocked when we moved there. 00:46:57.282 --> 00:47:05.872 - Michigan coming from Indiana, we thought things were better than we found them to be when we lived in 00:47:05.872 --> 00:47:14.546 - Memphis. And we were told by our real estate agent, you don't want to live in this community, you want 00:47:14.546 --> 00:47:23.051 - to be in this community, and kind of directed in that way. And she talked about schools and such. We 00:47:23.051 --> 00:47:25.662 - were expecting our first child 00:47:27.746 --> 00:47:36.307 - on before we figured that we were just in the wrong place. It was about two years later that we moved 00:47:36.307 --> 00:47:44.784 - to Oak Park, Illinois, being a more integrated community with public schools that were worthy of our 00:47:44.784 --> 00:47:53.513 - children, that we wanted them to be educated, but we also wanted them to be integrated with other kinds 00:47:53.513 --> 00:47:57.374 - of people, whatever their culture, they were. 00:48:15.522 --> 00:48:24.096 - I can't hear you. Jimmy, you trying to call me to stop? I am, but that's the same way to young Mrs. 00:48:24.096 --> 00:48:32.842 - Boone. My thoughts has to do more with systemic racism. That this country was basically built on. And 00:48:32.842 --> 00:48:41.758 - I think in terms that it's a lot easier to try to pull off a redistricting plan because we already have 00:48:41.758 --> 00:48:43.902 - redlining as an example. 00:48:44.642 --> 00:48:51.916 - From that standpoint, to me, you have to go all the way back and face this matter that you can't, the 00:48:51.916 --> 00:48:59.190 - systemic policy which is going to build on. But I said that, I know this is bad timing. I'm not going 00:48:59.190 --> 00:49:06.535 - to segue. No, I'm not ready yet. No, I'm not ready to segue yet. No, I'm only giving you a rough time. 00:49:06.535 --> 00:49:13.310 - I want you all to take four things with you. Stop looking to other people to correct problems. 00:49:16.258 --> 00:49:25.427 - We are they. We are the they. I said, we're the people we've been waiting for. Claude has a book out 00:49:25.427 --> 00:49:34.687 - now. We're the leaders we've been waiting for. I think that's the title of the book, Eddie Claude. So 00:49:34.687 --> 00:49:41.950 - stop looking outside of ourselves for solutions to the challenges that we face. 00:49:43.554 --> 00:49:55.166 - If you have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, great nieces, nephews, neighbors, share reading 00:49:55.166 --> 00:50:06.663 - materials with them. Historically accurate reading materials with them. You don't need permission to 00:50:06.663 --> 00:50:09.054 - do that. Just do it. 00:50:12.386 --> 00:50:19.468 - I was walking at the mall the other day. I'm almost finished, Ms. Moon. I was walking at the mall the 00:50:19.468 --> 00:50:26.410 - other day. Little six-month-old baby just beating on that, whatever that thing was, just beating on 00:50:26.410 --> 00:50:33.353 - it, OK? Beating on it in the sense that we've started having our kids be attended to by technology, 00:50:33.353 --> 00:50:40.990 - technological instruments, things that they can't even understand, and so on and so forth. So buy some books. 00:50:42.466 --> 00:50:50.853 - share some books with them and give them as gifts. And I'm serious about this. Third thing you can do 00:50:50.853 --> 00:50:59.815 - is don't remain silent. When you see things and hear things and know things that are historically inaccurate 00:50:59.815 --> 00:51:08.037 - and even contemporarily inaccurate, say something. Say something. Don't just sit there and just say 00:51:08.037 --> 00:51:11.326 - and just sort of cower under the table. 00:51:12.002 --> 00:51:19.448 - under your seat, say something. And the third thing you do is you make sure, even if you don't have 00:51:19.448 --> 00:51:27.639 - any children in the school system, become advocates for kids to make sure that they get a complete education. 00:51:27.639 --> 00:51:35.457 - So the banning of books doesn't do any good for us to total our thumbs and we're, oh, they said we can't 00:51:35.457 --> 00:51:36.574 - read that, OK? 00:51:37.026 --> 00:51:44.190 - What did you say when the governor of Florida came out against the advanced placement course in black 00:51:44.190 --> 00:51:51.214 - history? What did you say? Were you not bothered by it? What did you say? What did you do? When the 00:51:51.214 --> 00:51:58.238 - governor of Indiana signed an anti-DEI, what did you do? Did you do anything with just say turn the 00:51:58.238 --> 00:52:03.646 - television off or turn the volume down or put it on silent? What did you do? 00:52:06.850 --> 00:52:16.326 - You did right there. I'm glad you did, because so many people said it doesn't matter. So I'm not going 00:52:16.326 --> 00:52:25.802 - to even bother, but it does matter. We can't allow our voices to be silenced. Ms. Boone, come on, take 00:52:25.802 --> 00:52:34.174 - it away, sister. Thank you, Charlie. You want me to stand up here so I can say no for you? 00:52:34.722 --> 00:52:41.078 - Thank you so much for that speech, Mr. Nelms. Good afternoon, friends, elders, educators, organizers, 00:52:41.078 --> 00:52:47.435 - and freedom fighters. I'm Anaya Behan, and I'm a junior at Bloomington High School South, and I'm the 00:52:47.435 --> 00:52:53.729 - president of the NAACP Bloomington branch of the Youth Council. Freedom schools were not simply just 00:52:53.729 --> 00:53:00.023 - summer programs. They were not remedial classrooms. They were not charity. Freedom schools were acts 00:53:00.023 --> 00:53:00.958 - of resistance. 00:53:01.218 --> 00:53:06.986 - They were born in a moment when the United States is very clear about who education was for and who 00:53:06.986 --> 00:53:13.100 - it was not for. In the Jim Crow South, black children attended underfunded, overcrowded schools, outdated 00:53:13.100 --> 00:53:19.099 - books, if they were allowed to attend school at all. Their history was erased. Their brilliance denied. 00:53:19.099 --> 00:53:24.579 - Their futures were intentionally narrowed. So in 1964, during what we now call Freedom Summer, 00:53:24.579 --> 00:53:30.462 - young people, many of them college students, many of them risking their lives, joined black community 00:53:30.786 --> 00:53:37.378 - communities in Mississippi to do something radical. They taught the truth. Freedom schools emerged from 00:53:37.378 --> 00:53:43.970 - the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or the SNCC, and the broader civil rights movement. They 00:53:43.970 --> 00:53:50.498 - were designed to do what segregated public schools refused to do, educate black children to understand 00:53:50.498 --> 00:53:56.836 - their history, their power, and their right to shape democracy. At the heart of freedom schools was 00:53:56.836 --> 00:54:00.766 - a simple yet revolutionary idea. Education should prepare you 00:54:01.026 --> 00:54:08.402 - to prepare you to be free, not obedient, not quiet, not grateful for scraps, but free. The curriculums 00:54:08.402 --> 00:54:15.636 - center to questions most schools avoid. Why are things the way they are? Who has power? Who decides? 00:54:15.636 --> 00:54:19.646 - And what is my responsibility to change unjust systems? 00:54:21.154 --> 00:54:27.477 - Students read black authors. They studied African and African-American history. They talked openly about 00:54:27.477 --> 00:54:33.619 - racism, voter suppression, poverty, and violence. They learned how the Constitution worked and how it 00:54:33.619 --> 00:54:39.942 - failed them. They practiced speaking, debating, and organizing. Freedom schools didn't just ask students 00:54:39.942 --> 00:54:46.446 - to memorize facts. They asked them to analyze power. And that terrified the status quo. Because an educated 00:54:46.446 --> 00:54:50.782 - child who understands injustice is a dangerous thing to unjust systems. 00:54:51.298 --> 00:54:57.088 - Freedom schools were also deeply communal. They operated in churches, basements, living rooms, and community 00:54:57.088 --> 00:55:02.718 - centers. Parents were involved, elders were involved, local leaders helped shape the learning. The school 00:55:02.718 --> 00:55:08.082 - did not belong to the state, it belonged to the people. And let's be clear, this work was dangerous. 00:55:08.082 --> 00:55:13.500 - Freedom school teachers were harassed, threatened, and sometimes even arrested. Churches were bombed, 00:55:13.500 --> 00:55:15.678 - organizers were beaten, three young men, 00:55:15.810 --> 00:55:21.715 - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Scherner were murdered for their work that summer. So we speak 00:55:21.715 --> 00:55:27.565 - of freedom schools, we must speak with reverence. This was not a symbolic education, this was education 00:55:27.565 --> 00:55:33.414 - under siege. And yet, students showed up. They showed up hungry for knowledge, hungry for truth, hungry 00:55:33.414 --> 00:55:37.182 - for a future larger than what segregation allowed them to imagine. 00:55:37.762 --> 00:55:43.502 - Many freedom school students went on to become organizers, teachers, elected officials, and community 00:55:43.502 --> 00:55:49.129 - leaders. Not because freedom schools promised careers, but because they cultivated courage. So what 00:55:49.129 --> 00:55:54.869 - made freedom schools different? First, they were explicitly political. Not partisan, but political in 00:55:54.869 --> 00:56:00.722 - the truest sense. Concerned with power, participation, and justice. Second, they were student-centered. 00:56:00.722 --> 00:56:04.830 - Young people's questions, lived experiences, and voices shaped learning. 00:56:05.314 --> 00:56:11.437 - Third, they were grounded in dignity. Freedom schools assumed black children were not broken, behind, 00:56:11.437 --> 00:56:17.501 - or deficit. They assumed the system was. And finally, they were rooted in collective responsibility. 00:56:17.501 --> 00:56:23.564 - Learning was not just for personal advancement, it was for community survival. Now, some people hear 00:56:23.564 --> 00:56:29.808 - this history and say, that was then. They once believed freedom schools belonged to the past. But let's 00:56:29.808 --> 00:56:33.470 - ask ourselves, are schools today fully funded and equitable? 00:56:33.922 --> 00:56:40.383 - Is black history taught honestly and completely? Are students encouraged to question injustice? Is civic 00:56:40.383 --> 00:56:46.660 - education expanding or being restricted? Across this country, we are witnessing book bans, curriculum 00:56:46.660 --> 00:56:52.813 - gag orders, attacks on educators, and the criminalization of honest teaching. We see renewed effort 00:56:52.813 --> 00:56:58.967 - to control what young people are allowed to see and know about race, gender, history, and democracy 00:56:58.967 --> 00:57:01.182 - itself. That should sound familiar. 00:57:01.666 --> 00:57:09.486 - which means the spirit of freedom school is not behind us. It is calling us forward. And this is where 00:57:09.486 --> 00:57:17.307 - the work of today's scholars and educators meets the legacies of yesterday's movement builders. At the 00:57:17.307 --> 00:57:25.051 - 2025 22nd American Educational Research Association annual Brown Lecture, Dr. James A. Banks, a giant 00:57:25.051 --> 00:57:30.366 - in multicultural education, issued a clear and urgent call to action. 00:57:30.498 --> 00:57:37.025 - He called for transformative civic education, an education that prepares young people not just to participate 00:57:37.025 --> 00:57:43.255 - in democracy as it exists, but to reimagine and improve it. Dr. Banks emphasized that this kind of civic 00:57:43.255 --> 00:57:49.188 - education must help young people develop cultural, national, and global identities, not ones at the 00:57:49.188 --> 00:57:55.241 - expense of others, but all at once. He spoke directly to youth, but also reminded us that work is for 00:57:55.241 --> 00:57:59.038 - all of us because democracy is not sustained by children alone. 00:57:59.970 --> 00:58:06.070 - that call should sound familiar to us, because freedom schools were doing that exact thing decades ago, 00:58:06.070 --> 00:58:12.112 - helping young people understand who they were culturally, how they were positioned nationally, and how 00:58:12.112 --> 00:58:18.036 - their struggles connected to a global movement for liberation. Transformative civic education is not 00:58:18.036 --> 00:58:23.198 - new. It is a continuation. It asks us to move beyond surface level inclusion and toward 00:58:23.298 --> 00:58:30.143 - deep engagement with power, history, and responsibility. It asks us to prepare young people to live 00:58:30.143 --> 00:58:37.537 - with complexity, to hold multiple identities, and to see themselves as agents of change, not just consumers 00:58:37.537 --> 00:58:44.382 - of information. And if we are honest, it asks something of us too. It asks adults to keep learning. 00:58:44.578 --> 00:58:49.826 - It asks educators to keep telling the truth. And it asks communities to protect spaces where critical 00:58:49.826 --> 00:58:55.434 - thinking can thrive. Freedom schools remind us that education has always been a battleground. And neutrality 00:58:55.434 --> 00:59:00.682 - in times of injustice is a choice that sides with power. They remind us that young people are not too 00:59:00.682 --> 00:59:05.879 - young to understand oppression or to imagine liberation. They remind us that communities do not need 00:59:05.879 --> 00:59:11.436 - permission to teach their children the truth. And they remind us that progress has never come from comfort. 00:59:11.436 --> 00:59:13.854 - It has come from courageous collective action. 00:59:13.986 --> 00:59:20.091 - Today we invoke freedom schools we Today so today when we invoke freedom schools, we are not engaging 00:59:20.091 --> 00:59:26.136 - in nostalgia We are making a claim a claim that education should liberate a claim that truth-telling 00:59:26.136 --> 00:59:32.241 - is not optional a claim that democracy requires informed empowered people Freedom schools asks us the 00:59:32.241 --> 00:59:36.670 - hard questions. Are we willing to invest young people beyond test scores? 00:59:36.866 --> 00:59:42.779 - Are we willing to defend educators who teach honestly? And are we willing to build spaces where truth, 00:59:42.779 --> 00:59:48.520 - history, and justice are centered? And perhaps the most important question, are we willing to trust 00:59:48.520 --> 00:59:54.318 - the next generations and ourselves with the truth? In closing, let us remember, freedom schools were 00:59:54.318 --> 01:00:00.231 - not perfect. They were improvised, under-resourced, and short-lived in formal structure. But they were 01:00:00.231 --> 01:00:06.029 - also profoundly productive. They shifted consciousness. They built leaders. They helped bend the arc 01:00:06.029 --> 01:00:06.718 - of history. 01:00:06.914 --> 01:00:13.147 - as we face renewed rollbacks of progress, renewed attacks on truth, and renewed attempts to narrow who 01:00:13.147 --> 01:00:19.198 - belongs in our democracy. We would do well to remember their lesson. Freedom schools remind us that 01:00:19.198 --> 01:00:25.854 - education has never been neutral, and neither can we be. Thank you, and I now turn it over to President Sims. 01:00:37.282 --> 01:00:46.327 - You all as proud of her as I am. Thank you. So now the question before us is not whether freedom schools 01:00:46.327 --> 01:00:55.027 - matter. The question is, what will we do with what we know? Too often in moments like this, we leave 01:00:55.027 --> 01:01:03.814 - inspired but paralyzed, feeling the weight of the moment and wondering, what can I actually do? Where 01:01:03.814 --> 01:01:05.278 - do I even start? 01:01:06.690 --> 01:01:13.449 - Let me be clear, here is something you can do. Freedom schools were never built by perfect systems. 01:01:13.449 --> 01:01:20.410 - They were built by courageous communities who decided they could not wait. We cannot wait for policies 01:01:20.410 --> 01:01:27.169 - to catch up. We cannot wait for institutions to become brave. We cannot wait for permission. Now is 01:01:27.169 --> 01:01:34.401 - the time to build. Here in Monroe County, we have young people, such as who you heard from this afternoon, 01:01:34.401 --> 01:01:36.158 - who are hungry for truth. 01:01:36.386 --> 01:01:44.085 - They're hungry for history and hungry for belonging. We have educators, parents, elders, students, 01:01:44.085 --> 01:01:52.094 - organizers, and faith leaders who understand that democracy does not sustain itself. Educated, engaged 01:01:52.094 --> 01:02:00.104 - people sustain it. Bringing freedom schools back to life will not look like a replica of 1964. It will 01:02:00.104 --> 01:02:06.014 - look like us responding to this moment in this place with courage and care. 01:02:07.554 --> 01:02:15.578 - and this work must be community led. The NAACP, and let me back up, Monroe County NAACP Education 01:02:15.578 --> 01:02:23.767 - Subcommittee is not here to own this work. We are here to walk alongside it. We will crawl with you 01:02:23.767 --> 01:02:32.446 - if that's where you are. We will walk with you when you're ready. We will run when the moment demands it. 01:02:33.154 --> 01:02:40.502 - The subcommittee chair will handle the administrative work, connecting people, coordinating communication. 01:02:40.502 --> 01:02:47.782 - But the vision, the leadership, and the power must come from you all, from us all, the community. Because 01:02:47.782 --> 01:02:54.650 - Freedom Schools have always belonged to the people. So today, we are circulating sign-up sheets for 01:02:54.650 --> 01:03:00.350 - a Freedom School Steering Committee. Signing your name is not a lifetime contract. 01:03:00.802 --> 01:03:09.227 - It is a declaration of possibility. It is you saying I am willing to explore. I am willing to learn. 01:03:09.227 --> 01:03:18.069 - I am willing to help build. This is how movements begin, not with certainty, but with commitment. Freedom 01:03:18.069 --> 01:03:26.493 - schools teach us that education is how freedom learns to last. They remind us that silence has never 01:03:26.493 --> 01:03:29.246 - moved us forward. Education has. 01:03:29.890 --> 01:03:39.188 - And they call us to remember that freedom is not something we wait for. Freedom is a learned practice. 01:03:39.188 --> 01:03:48.485 - So I invite you, no, I urge you, to take a step today. Try it. Do something. Sign your name. Start the 01:03:48.485 --> 01:03:56.158 - work. Because we cannot wait for systems to change. We must build now. And if we do, 01:03:56.386 --> 01:04:05.185 - Together, Monroe County can once again become a place where truth is the curriculum, justice is the 01:04:05.185 --> 01:04:14.423 - outcome, and freedom is brought to life. Now, committee members will work around the room to pass around 01:04:14.423 --> 01:04:22.782 - sign-up sheets. Please fill the urge, the need to sign this sheet, and help us with this work. 01:04:27.586 --> 01:04:35.437 - As we prepare to close, I want to pause and offer gratitude because gatherings like this do not happen 01:04:35.437 --> 01:04:43.364 - without people showing up with intention, generosity, and courage. First, we want to thank Dr. Charlie, 01:04:43.364 --> 01:04:50.986 - and I knew the difference, Dr. Charlie Nams for his powerful words and leadership today. Thank you, 01:04:50.986 --> 01:04:56.702 - sir. Your reflections reminded us what it means to stay rooted in justice, 01:04:57.154 --> 01:05:06.040 - in truth and possibility, even when progress is challenged. We also are deeply grateful to Anaya Boone 01:05:06.040 --> 01:05:14.927 - for grounding us in the history of freedom schools. I thank her for reminding us that this work is not 01:05:14.927 --> 01:05:24.158 - abstract. It is not new. It has always been filled by communities who refuse to accept silence or erasure. 01:05:25.442 --> 01:05:33.617 - I want to extend sincere thanks to the members of the NAACP Education Committee who helped bring this 01:05:33.617 --> 01:05:41.632 - convening to life, members of which are Dr. Gloria Howell, wave your hand everybody if you'll check 01:05:41.632 --> 01:05:49.406 - your name, Ms. Vivian Bridgewaters-Gray, Ms. Ruth Eight, Ms. Ralph Shaw back here in the corner, 01:05:50.402 --> 01:05:58.680 - and School Subcommittee Chair and our Education Committee Chair, Ms. Maria Douglas. We also want to 01:05:58.680 --> 01:06:06.957 - offer thanks to Jeremy Graham. Many of you know Jeremy, and he was to help our welcoming table. But 01:06:06.957 --> 01:06:15.235 - if you know Jeremy, you know that him and his wife gave birth to a healthy and happy little boy two 01:06:15.235 --> 01:06:19.870 - days ago. And now, Jeremy is a realtor with Century 21. 01:06:20.258 --> 01:06:27.376 - the Graham team, him and his wife. So we want to wish him well and thank him. I know he was with us 01:06:27.376 --> 01:06:34.494 - in spirit, so just wanted to point that out. And finally, thank you, attendees. Thank you for being 01:06:34.494 --> 01:06:41.684 - here, for listening, for reflecting, and for being willing to imagine what comes next. Showing up is 01:06:41.684 --> 01:06:48.446 - not passive, it is a choice. Today reminded us that Freedom Schools was never about nostalgia. 01:06:49.250 --> 01:06:56.873 - They were about necessity. They were built when communities refused to wait for systems to catch up 01:06:56.873 --> 01:07:05.258 - with justice, and that lesson still holds today. We are living in a moment that demands courage, imagination, 01:07:05.258 --> 01:07:13.262 - and action. And while it's easy to feel overwhelmed or unsure of where to begin, today we made one thing 01:07:13.262 --> 01:07:18.750 - clear. We do not have to wait. We do not have to have to do this alone. 01:07:19.842 --> 01:07:26.591 - If you feel called to help bring the spirit of freedom schools back to the life here in Monroe County, 01:07:26.591 --> 01:07:33.470 - we invite you to sign up for the steering committee. This is a community led effort. The NAACP education 01:07:33.470 --> 01:07:40.350 - subcommittee will support and walk alongside, but the vision and the power must come from the community. 01:07:41.698 --> 01:07:48.313 - I will add that we have a very strong partnership and good working relationship with the administration 01:07:48.313 --> 01:07:54.673 - and the superintendent of Monroe County Community Schools. So that is also gonna help us as we move 01:07:54.673 --> 01:08:01.097 - forward. Now, not that we're gonna change their curriculum or change their methods, per se, but they 01:08:01.097 --> 01:08:08.094 - do listen, I will assure you that. Now, whether you're ready to crawl, walk, or run, this is a place for you. 01:08:08.866 --> 01:08:17.665 - Because education is how freedom learns to last. Because democracy does not sustain itself, people do. 01:08:17.665 --> 01:08:26.379 - And because the time to build is not someday, that time is now. Now, before I fully close, as always, 01:08:26.379 --> 01:08:34.238 - I'd like to acknowledge part of the strength that I have to stay engaged with the community 01:08:34.402 --> 01:08:41.658 - work hard. And that's my lovely wife, Dora Simms, who supports it all along the way. I must do that. 01:08:41.658 --> 01:08:49.058 - And I also don't intend to be self-serving, but I also think it carries a message. Don't so much worry 01:08:49.058 --> 01:08:56.530 - about the author, but absorb the message, I think. So at some point, grab a Blue magazine. Turn to page 01:08:56.530 --> 01:09:01.918 - 12. Look at that article up there, and I hope it just permeates your soul. 01:09:02.946 --> 01:09:09.049 - invigorate you to help continue our work. That's all I'll say about that. Just grab your blue magazine, 01:09:09.049 --> 01:09:14.977 - and let's talk about that later. Thank you for being here, and thank you for your courage. Thank you 01:09:14.977 --> 01:09:20.845 - for helping carry this work forward. Thanks again to my friend Dr. Nelms. Safe travels, and we look 01:09:20.845 --> 01:09:23.486 - forward to building together. Thank you all.