Can Freedom Schools Fill Educational Gaps for Black Students?

By Quintessa Williams | Word In Black(WIB) – In the mid-1960s, when the Supreme Court ordered the integration of public schools, states in the Deep South were incensed. Not only did they refuse to comply, but they also banned Black schools from teaching American history between 1860 and 1875—the years between the start of the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction. In 2022, when Southern red states followed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s restrictions on teaching Black history in classrooms, Black communities in the Sunshine State and beyond found a solution by bringing back Freedom Schools. Resurrected in response to DeSantis’ Stop WOKE Act and similar measures from conservative state legislatures, Freedom Schools have reemerged as a critical means of ensuring that a new generation of Black children learn their history in a way the state can’t erase. “We cannot let anyone keep us from teaching Black history,” says Hazel Gillis, president of the Jacksonville, Florida, branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. “That’s why we’re so adamant that we’ve got to start now.” Freedom Schools have a deep-rooted history dating back to the Civil Rights Movement. Initially established during the 1964 Freedom Summer...