Freedom Teaching

Freedom Songs

Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around

SNCC Freedom Singers

Ella’s Song

Resistance Revival Chorus

Engage with the Sources: Bernice Robinson Oral History Interview

Bernice Robinson Interview

SCLC Citizenship Education Program (Mississippi), circa early 1964

Discuss these questions:

  • According to Robinson, why was she recruited to be the teacher? How did she approach teaching? What do you think made Robinson and the schools successful?
  • According to the [1964] summary of the Citizenship Education Program in Mississippi, what kinds of activities were they doing in classrooms and their communities? What stands out to you about this summary?
  • How do the Citizenship Schools reflect the kind of Freedom Teaching SNCC prioritized? How did this approach emerge from their early history?

Engage with the Sources: Bob Moses interview by Charles Payne

After reading the interview, discuss these questions:

  • What does Moses say the Movement did to provide people with a form of credentials or the belief that they had the skills to act? What does he say about the importance of people in the Movement being exposed to people from outside their community?
  • What does Moses say about the way SNCC developed a movement culture that supported and reflected Freedom Teaching?
  • In some sections of this interview, Moses talks about the importance of organizing, which was closely related to Freedom Teaching. How does he describe Ms. Baker’s role with SNCC and the Movement? What does Moses say about the role of personal connections and family in the Movement?

Engage with the Sources: Stokley Speech Class, Notes by Jane Stembridge, Waveland Work-Study 1965


Read Stokely’s class and consider these questions:

  • How does Carmichael help the students consider and rethink assumptions about language and what is “proper”?
  • What does this class suggest about SNCC’s approach to freedom teaching compared with traditional academic teaching?

Engage with the Sources: Charlie Cobb’s Prospectus on Freedom Schools


Read Cobb’s “Prospectus” and answer the following questions:

  • Why did Cobb argue that SNCC should develop Freedom Schools? What did he think the schools should look like?
  • How did he think the schools would benefit the students? How would they strengthen the Movement?
  • If you were going to create a Freedom School today, how would you set it up? What and how would you teach?

Engage with the Sources: Freedom School Photographs

Herbert Randall Freedom Summer Photographs, University of Southern Mississippi

Children visiting exhibit of Freedom School students’ art work at the Palmers Crossing Community Center, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 1964, Herbert Randall Freedom Summer Photographs, USM

Four teenaged Freedom School students take part in class discussion sitting at a table in the basement room of probably St. Paul United Methodist Church. Alice Adams is on the right and George Ann Adams on the left between two male students, Herbert Randall Photographs, USM

Julius Lester performs at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 1964

Folksinger “Folksy” Joe (Joseph Decker) Harrison giving a guitar lesson to three Freedom School students during Freedom Summer in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 1964. To the right of Harrison is Curtis Ducksworth

Children Watch Performance; August, 1964. Photograph (positive image of a negative) of the view of the audience of the Free Southern Theater’s performance of Martin Duberman’s play “In White America” at True Light Baptist Church

An MFDP lecture in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, July 1964

  • Based on Randall’s photographs, how did teachers and students approach learning? What stands out about what they were doing?
  • How did this type of learning differ from the education Black children received in their Mississippi public schools?
  • Would you like to teach in or attend schools like these? What do you think is important about these classes?

Engage with the Sources: Meridian Freedom Schools’ Platform


Read the platform and consider the following questions:

  • What issues did the Freedom School students focus on in Meridian
  • How many of these issues remain relevant today? If you were updating their work, what would you change or add?

Bibliography

Baker, Ella, & Anne Braden Organize Civil Liberties Workshop, SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University.

Bond, Julian, Foreword to The Making of Black Revolutionaries, xi-xiii. By James Forman. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.

Carmichael, Stokely, with Ekwueme Michael Thelwell. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Times of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Scribner, 2003.

Cobb, Charles E. Introduction to Negroes in American History: Freedom Primer. By Bobbi Cieciorka and Frank Cieciorka. Atlanta: The Student Voice, 1965.

Cobb, Charles E. “Prospectus for Summer Freedom School Program in Mississippi,” Dec. 1963, Harry J. Bowie Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society. Accessed Aug. 17, 2024. https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/p15932coll2/id/3794.

Crosby, Emilye, ed. “’I Just Have a Fire!’ An Interview with Dorie Ann Ladner.” The Southern Quarterly 52, no. 1 (Fall 2014): 79-111.

Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. Urbana. University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.

Freedom Schools, SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University.

Hall, Prathia. “Freedom Faith.” In Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. 172-80. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010.

Holland, Endesha Ida Mae. From the Mississippi Delta: A Memoir by Endesha Ida Mae Holland. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Learning from Experience, Part 1, SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University.

McDew, Charles. In A Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC. Ed. by Cheryl Lynn Greenberg. 34-36. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

McDew, Charles, and Beryl Gilfix. Tell the Story: A Memoir of the Civil Rights Movement. Self-published, Beryl Gilfix, 2020.

Moses, Bob. In Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. 94. New York: Bantam, 2011.

Moses, Bob. Interview by Charles Payne. In Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-68. 170-87. By Steven F. Lawson and Charles Payne. Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006.

Moses, Bob. Report to Voter Education Project. “Mississippi’ Voter Registration Project.”
Jan. 21, 1963. Civil Rights Movement Archive. Accessed Aug. 23, 2024. https://www.crmvet.org/lets/letshome.htm.

Payne, Charles M. I’ve Got the Right of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Richardson, Judy. SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University.

Rock Hill Sit-Ins and Jail No Bail, SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University.

Simmons, Gwendolyn Zoharah. “From Little Memphis Girl to Mississippi Amazon.” In Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. 9-32. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010.

Sojourner, Sue [Lorenzi] and Cheryl Reitan. Thunder of Freedom: Black Leadership and the Transformation of 1960s Mississippi. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2013.

Sutherland, Elizabeth, ed. Letters from Mississippi. New York: Signet, McGraw-Hill, 1966.

Visser-Maessen, Laura. Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

White, Annette Jones. “Finding Form for the Expression of My Discontent.” In Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. 100-19. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010.