Teach Freedom: Education for Liberation in the African-American Tradition / Edition 1

by Charles M. Payne, Carol Sills Strickland, William Ayers, Therese Quinn

Overview

The self-conscious use of education as an instrument of liberation among African Americans is exactly as old as education among African Americans. This dynamic anthology is about those forms of education intended to help people think more critically about the social forces shaping their lives and think more confidently about their ability to react against those forces. Featuring articles by educator-activists, this collection explores the largely forgotten history of attempts by African Americans to use education as a tool of collective liberation. Together these contributions explore the variety of forms those attempts have taken, from the shadow of slavery to the contradictions of hip-hop. Contributors address “Lessons from the Past” and discuss Citizenship Schools in the South, Ella Baker and the Harlem Y, Mississippi Freedom Schools, and Black Panther Liberation Schools. Contemporary models are covered as well, demonstrating the depth and tenacity of the tradition in such efforts as the Freedom Schools established by the Children’s Defense Fund.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807748725
Publisher:	Teachers College Press
Publication date:	04/12/2008
Series:	The Teaching for Social Justice Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Charles M. Payne is the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. His books include the award-winning I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. Carol Sills Strickland has served as associate editor for the journal New Schools, New Communities, on the editorial board of the Harvard Educational Review, and on the editorial board of Afterschool Matters.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Full Circle   Charles E. Cobb, Jr.     xi
Acknowledgments     xv
Introduction   Charles M. Payne     1
Projecting Imagination Beyond Circumstance
To Build a New Jerusalem   Steven Hahn     15
"We Are Rising as a People": The Content of Instruction in Freedmen's School   Robert C. Morris     19
Building the Army of Democracy
The Birth of the Citizenship Schools: Entwining the Struggles for Literacy and Freedom   David Levine     25
"They Walk, Talk, and Act Like New People": Citizenship Education Program in Southeastern Georgia, 1960-1975   Deanna M. Gillespie     42
"Give Light and the People Will Find a Way": Ella Baker and Teaching as Politics   Charles M. Payne     56
The 1960s: From Freedom to Liberation
Prospectus for a Summer Freedom School Program   Charles E. Cobb, Jr.     67
Organizing Freedom Schools   Charles E. Cobb, Jr.     69
Freedom, Liberation, Accommodation: Politics and Pedagogy in SNCC and the Black Panther Party   Daniel Perlstein     75
Minds Still Stayed on Freedom? Reflections on Politics, Consensus, and Pedagogy in the African American Freedom Struggle   Fannie Theresa Rushing     95
"The World Is a Child's Classroom": AnAnalysis of the Black Panther Party's Oakland Community School   Charles E. Jones   Jonathan Gayles     100
Sankofa: Looking Back to Look Forward-Contemporary Expressions of Education for Liberation
My Sister, My Brother, Myself: Critical Exploration of Sexism and Misogyny at the Brotherhood/Sister Sol   Susan Wilcox     117
And Who Gets to Define "Freedom"? An Exchange on the Sunflower County Freedom Project-May-June 2005   William Ayers   Chris Myers Asch     130
Project Daniel: A Church-Based Enrichment Program of Liberation for African American Boys   Michael G. Hayes     150
"Freedom Is a Constant Struggle": The Story of the Bushwick School for Social Justice and Make the Road by Walking   Hollyce C. Giles     159
The Black Student Leadership Network's Summer Freedom School Program   Sekou M. Franklin     177
The P-O-W-E-R of Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools   Gale Seiler     191
Emancipatory Education Versus School-Based Violence Prevention   Randolph G. Potts     201
Profile of an Independent Black Institution: African-Centered Education at Work   Carol D. Lee     208
Rebel Musics: African Diaspora Popular Culture and Critical Literacy Pedagogies   Ernest Morrell     222
Afterword   Carol Sills Strickland     235
References     237
About the Editors and the Contributors     253
Index     257

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“One of the basic lessons of the Southern civil rights movement is that you cannot predict what spark will light a fire.”
—From the Foreword by Charles E. Cobb, Jr., senior writer and diplomatic correspondent for allAfrica.com

“One of the guiding principles has to be that we cannot lead a struggle that involves masses of people without identifying with the people and without getting people to understand what their potentials are, what their strengths are.”
—Ella Baker, Advisor, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

“In the spirit of Ella Baker and Carter G. Woodson, Professors Payne and Sills Strickland have assembled a collection of writings that reveal the complex but necessary truths embedded in the lives of young people of color and organizing for liberation. This compilation is a must read for those who work in solidarity with young people to change our condition.”
—David Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago

“Teach Freedom combines a compelling history of liberatory education in the African-American community with inspiring contemporary portraits of schools and programs that build upon that tradition. In a time where high-stakes testing and narrow educational ‘objectives’ rule the day in our nation’s schools, this is a book—and a vision—we desperately need.
—Gregory Michie, Illinois State University, author of See You When We Get There