Stuff You Should Know - Selects: What were the Freedom Schools?

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

Freedom Schools were set up in Mississippi in the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, with the aim of giving young black school children agency and a future. They remain one of the more inspiring and progressive programs in American History, yet so few know about them. We're hoping to change that. Learn all about them in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the new Amy and TJ podcast, news anchors Amy Robock and TJ Holmes explore everything from current events to pop culture in a way that's informative, entertaining, and authentically groundbreaking. Join them as they share their voices for the first time since making their own headlines. This is the first time that we actually get to say,

what happened and where we are today. Listen to the Amy and TJ podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary K. McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told, where I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. She might be the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or some combination of those roles. These are the stories we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche.

Listen to the greatest true-crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, happy Saturday. I hope you have your cereal in your bowl and you've watched some Saturday morning cartoons and you are in your comfyest chair because the select that I'm picking for you is a great history episode from October 2019. What were the freedom schools? It's a great story that needed to be told by us. And so we did so. So I hope you enjoy it. We love our episodes on the Civil Rights era.

And this is a real good one. So check it out now, what were the Freedom Schools? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background And I'm pretty excited about this one freedom freedom schools. Yeah We would be the best singing duo ever if that's how it worked Yeah, I would just go big and you would just Lou read it. Yeah, exactly. Is that what I'm doing is Lou reading out? He made on my own heritage sort of speaking singing. Oh, okay, you know, yeah, that's what Lou read did. Yeah Maybe go to the refrigerator, baby. Yeah,

great song. He had about the fridge. Right. Give me one of those frozen stick of bars. They're not the ice cream kind. Actually, a stick of bar. I put into the freezer, bring it over here, baby. That's song. That's the one. And Nico would go, I am placing it in the threes. Was she German? Yeah, she had to be German. Was she German? I mean, she was, if not German Austrian or something. Well, I'm just saying I didn't even know,

I knew nothing about her except Nico sat in with the Velvet Underground for a while. And then my amazing vocal talents. Yeah, that was good. That's what, include me to the idea that she was a German. There's a movie about her later years that I want to see that came out this year or something. I think it's called Taken. Liam Neeson played it.

That's right. So Chuck, we're talking about freedom schools, as we already said, and then we got silly. Now we're getting back to it, okay? That's right, because this is not a silly topic. No. And it has a COA at the beginning, should we talk about that? Yeah, I think we should. Yeah, so this is about the Freedom Schools, which, as you will very soon find out, we're

in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, like, in probably the most dangerous place in the country during the most dangerous point in the Civil Rights Movement, That's where this story takes place That's right and freedom schools were great and they were a great thing and we're happy to be talking about them but in a lot of the quotes and in a lot of the curriculum of the freedom schools themselves they use the word negro and It's obviously not a word that people use anymore But some of the like curriculum class titles feature that word and so

Just let everyone know that that's coming. And we're not gonna say, we're just gonna read their curriculums and their books as it existed back then. Yeah, I think this heads up, yeah, where we're just kind of sticking to the vernacular at the times, being used in context, within reason of course. Sure.

So this takes place in the summer of 1964, but I want to go back a little further than that, to 1954, with the ground breaking, sea changing, brown versus board of education ruling, with Supreme Court said, you know that that separate, but equal thing that we said back in 1896 was Constitutional. Yeah, that's not true. segregation is not constitutional. It's not legal anymore. Everybody needs to integrate schools at least. But they failed to say and do it by 1964 or 1960 or next year. Yeah, they just said I think something like in a

Per like a deliberate and speedy manner or something like that. And so, Mississippi said, oh, you didn't tell us when we had to do it by. So, how about never? Yeah, let me just dig my heel in here and the other one in here and we're just going to keep our schools segregated and not only segregated. Mississippi had some of the poorest excuses for schools for African-American students in the country. The state average for Mississippi, I think in 1960, was that they

spent four times more on schools for white children than they did on schools for black children. That was just the state average. Right. Sometimes it was way worse. You're talking about budget, spinning budgets. Yeah. In Tunica, they spent $172.80 per white people on average in 1962. That's per year. That was in that year. For school year.

172.80. They spent $5.99 per black people. Wow. Yeah. And that's just kind of how it was. Like you went to school in sharecropper schools or what they were called if you were a black kid and you were, you got a terrible education by comparison. White kid schools usually ran for about six months out of the year. If you were an African American kid in Mississippi, your school might run three if it was even open that year. The rest of the time you were expected to be out in the field working and just knowing your place, basically. Yeah, and as you'll see throughout this podcast, those sharecropper schools

Not only did they fail them fundamentally on things like literacy and maths and things like that, but they also failed them historically because and I think things have gotten a lot better, but one could make the argument that history classes still fail historically in telling the true picture of some of these things. Absolutely. But back then, it was like, at the Sharecropper schools here,

you're learning white history, and it's not just like this is the important history, but like this is the only history, yours does not matter. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And even worse than that, when they were taught about their heritage or whatever, it was usually in relation to slavery, and it was also in relation to how Black people preferred

to be slaves. Right. And if they were far worse off after the war of Northern Aggression freed them, and that that was, they weren't interested in politics. They weren't really self-starters, and they needed white people to guide them. That's right. That was the education you got as an African-American kid in Mississippi around the time of the Civil Rights struggle.

And by the time 1964 rolled around, there was a lot of agitation going on in the African-American community. A lot of people saw, hey, there's no integration going on. Things haven't changed at all. We're being kept down by Jim Crow error laws, and we're going to agitate for change.

And in response to that, there was a lot of violence against that agitation for change. From the KKK, from the state police, from local sheriffs, from the local sheriffs, Redneck Brothers. Like you could get yourself killed just by going to vote, register to vote. Yeah, and if the police were not inciting or committing the violence themselves,

they certainly would turn a blind eye to anything that was going on. Exactly. And not do police work. So it's in this context around December of 1963 that a guy named Robert Moses, who was one of the members of, I believe he was with core, the, no, I'm sorry, he was with SNCC, the student nonviolent coordinating committee in Mississippi. And he said, I've got an idea, we're going to call it

freedom summer. Yeah, and the freedom summer, by the way big shout out to Dave Ruse Big shout out one of our Stable of writers these days from the old house stuff works.com website. Dave is helping us out and boy He does a great job. He does. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, so thanks Dave But yeah, the freedom summer was in 1964 and the whole goal of the freedom summer Was really to get people registered to vote on mass? The Freedom Summer was in 1964, and the whole goal of the Freedom Summer was really to get people registered to vote on mass. Right, that was the stated goal of it.

Yeah, for sure. But the subtext of it, John Hale wrote a book on Freedom Summer in Freedom Schools, which you're gonna talk about, and he actually helped Dave out with this article, so shout out to John Hale too. But he had a quote from John Lewis, the great John Lewis, who said basically, the point of freedom summer was to force a showdown

between local authorities and federal authorities, because the local authorities were abusively enforcing white supremacy, and the federal authorities were turning a blind eye to it. And so they said, we need to put ourselves in visible harm's way and force a showdown between these two entities. Yeah, in 1964, as key, it wasn't just sort of picked randomly, it was key because the Civil Rights Act was going to be signed in July of that year, but it did not include

Black Voting Rights Protection. And the Democratic National Convention was going to be at the end of August of that year in Atlantic City. And this is basically like, let's get black folks registered to vote so they can go in there and unseat these Dixie crats, the Southern Democrats who were still very much segregationist. It Mississippi, there for the Democratic Convention, their delegation, the Mississippi delegation, was all white. Yeah, and that was another big, big goal was to create a separate black delegation for that national convention.

Right. So, to get this, to force the showdown between local authorities and federal authorities, the civil rights activists like Robert Moses working in Mississippi had zero illusions That that the federal government was gonna come down and help them out no matter what they were doing. Yeah, instead They would be forced to act if white northern kids the children of these federal authorities came down to Mississippi and put themselves in harm's way too Yeah kids meaning you meaning college students. Right. Kids, kids to old folks like us.

Right, exactly. Youngsters. But they weren't sending down like 12-year-olds. No, no, nothing like that. But like college students who wanted to come down and help people who truly believed in the cause of civil rights. Yeah, white, liberal, progressive, northern, oftentimes Jewish, but not always. But as far as getting the federal authorities

to pay attention, that first descriptor is the most important one, white. Yes. Because again, they knew in Mississippi, no federal authorities were gonna pay attention to that. And I mean, they had good reason to think that Kennedy had the Civil Rights Act as far back as 1960, but agreed not to bring it up in Congress,

because they were still trying to figure out how to keep the Dixie Crats happy Right and maybe get some sort of integration going or civil rights going and They've just been left hung out to dry by the federal authorities so many times that they were totally right in that assumption Yeah, and they knew that in order to really affect change Like you said, they were gonna get no assistance from the federal government. So they need to do it on the ground, grassroots style, and what they're really looking toward was the future, and they knew that getting kids involved was the key, and the only way to do that, or they figured the best way to do that, and I think they were right, was to

devise what was called the Freedom Schools. Right. And the summer of 1964, which ended up being 41 summer schools, community-based summer schools, where they had cork curriculums for sure, but what they really were trying to do was teach young black kids about their history and their self-worth and give them a path forward in the United States with a voice. Like, give them an education that they couldn't find anywhere in those sharecropper schools, where the sharecropper schools point was to keep them down

uneducated and out of politics so that they couldn't vote. These freedom schools were meant to do the exact opposite to teach them their self-worth, but also to say like, here's how you can actually enact change, and to create the next generation of civil rights activists in Mississippi, that was the point of the Freedom School. Yeah, and like, it was hitting me as I was reading this, how progressive that was for 1964,

because that would be progressive now, in places like even Georgia. Absolutely, and it's still going on now, as we'll see like the children's defense fund revived the freedom schools back in the 80s and I think they still have them. And it does still have a tinge of subversion sadly, teaching black kids in America their self-worth.

Yeah. That's sad. All right, that's a great preamble. Should we take a break? Phew. Ha ha ha ha. All right, we are gonna take a break and we're gonna to come back and really dig into the mission of the Freedom Schools right after this. In the new Amy and TJ podcast, Amy Roboc and TJ Holmes, a renowned broadcasting team with decades of experience delivering headline news and captivating viewers nationwide,

are sharing their voices and perspectives in a way you've never heard before. They explore meaningful conversations about current events, pop culture, and everything in between. Nothing is off limits. This was a scandal that wasn't. And this was not what you've been sold. The Aimee and TJ podcast is guaranteed to be informative, entertaining, and above all, authentic. It marks the first time Robock and Holmes speak publicly since their own names became a part of the headlines. This is the first time that we actually get to say,

what happened and where we are today. Listen to the Amy and TJ podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary K. McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. I write about True Crime, which means I live inside the research wormhole, but I'm not necessarily interested in the headline grabbing elements, the blood and the gore, all of that.

I'm more interested in the people behind these stories and what we can learn by looking at their experiences. You can meet me every week on the greatest true crime stories ever told, where I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. She might be the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or some combination of these roles. I delve into the good, the bad, the difficult, and all the nuance I can find. Because these are the stories we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Listen to the greatest true

crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the Elvis Taran in the morning show for a special gathering in iHeart Landon State Farm Park. or wherever you get your podcasts. I Heartland in Fortnite, available for a limited time. Afterwards, stick around and check out all the exciting things State Farmhouse offer. Say hi to Jake from State Farm on the big screen and try to beat Jake Skour at the Park or Mini Game. Visit iHeartRadio.com slash I Heartland to start playing today. Okay, so Freedom Schools, again, launched and proposed by SNCC, Snick, Snick Leader, Charlie Cobb in December 63, and they had three, the original idea was let's get 11th and 12th graders, because they're just on the cusp of being in, you know, in the real world, arguably already were in the real world.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Sure. And they had three stated purposes that they wanted to accomplish, supplement what they aren't learning in high school. Yeah. Simple enough. Number two, give them a broad intellectual and academic experience

during the summertime to bring back to students in the classrooms, I guess in the fall. Yeah. And then form the basis for statewide student action. Like, here's how you can boycott something. Here's how you can raise awareness. Right. Like teach them how to be grassroots activists.

And also one of the things that they wanted to teach them that we'll see is this is how things work. Like, here's the nuts and bolts of this power structure that we live in that holds us down. And here, understanding how it works, you can start to poke around and figure out how to overcome that. That was a huge, huge part of it.

That's right. So it all starts with volunteers. Right. And these, like we said, are mainly college students. They saw this by way of ads in the New York Times and other groups and college campuses that basically said, hey, this is what we want to do. You've been watching this on TV every night.

I know that you might live in Manhattan or Brooklyn or someplace, but if you are a young, white, liberal, progressive, and you really want to make a difference, get off your couch and come down to Mississippi for the summer, in danger or life, and help teach these kids. Yeah, and I think something like 1,000 I saw,

like as much as 2,500, a bunch of people answered this call. Like northern, mostly white college students came down to Mississippi for this freedom summer, not just the freedom schools. Yeah, yeah, I think 280 of them ended up being teachers out of about 700 or so who volunteered for the freedom summer. Yeah, and I've heard different stories on how the people who got selected to be teachers for the freedom schools were selected. This article makes it sound like the greener ones, the ones who really shouldn't be put in harm's way, were assigned to the freedom schools.

But from what I've read, they were very much in harm's way as being teachers of these freedom schools. Yeah. But regardless of who got assigned to become a freedom school teacher or why, they were told you're going to have to pay your way to and from Mississippi. You're going to have to pay your own room and board, so expect to have to shell out over 200 bucks or up to 200 bucks over the course of the summer. Yeah, it also said they would live basically in the homes of

local black families. I wonder if they paid them rent. I families i wonder if they paid them rent i don't know if they paid them rent but the black families who did put these white northern college students up over the summer to teach freedom schools very much put their own families in homes in harms way for sure because the freedom school and actually the whole freedom summer volunteers who came down

they didn't take Mississippi by surprise. The White Power establishment, Mississippi, knew they were coming. And they were very unhappy about this. They said publicly that these people would be treated as invaders, that this was a second war of Northern aggression. They doubled the number of highway patrol officers and not to keep the peace. They knew they were coming down and they were not happy about these freedom schools or the freedom summer in general.

Yeah, and I guess we should go ahead and say right off the bat to add gravity to the situation. And there may be a short stuff in here. I've been wanting to do one on the disappearance of these three men. But the core training crew, Congress of racial equality was core. And they were helping out with the freedom rides in the early 60s on the buses in Selma in the deep south. And there were three gentlemen, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schorner, two white men, and another colleague, James Cheney, a young black man that worked with core. They went missing in Longdale, Mississippi, and were basically taken and murdered.

So this is at the very, this is before, a few months before the freedom schools were to launch, and you're going down there knowing that these men disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I'm pretty sure it was like a week before basically, because it happened like they got the news during the orientation in Oxford, Ohio, that they held for the freedom school teachers.

The news came through that these three guys had gone missing and then were later found murdered. And some people did back out and were like, I can't take this risk, but it seems like most of them pressed on. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And I think some people's resolve was doubled by that kind of thing too. But their disappearance and ultimately their deaths

proved that idea that the civil rights activists and Mississippi needed these white northern volunteers to come down. Because James Cheney, he was a local Mississippi activist. He was a black guy and Shwarner, Michael Shwarner, and Goodman. Both of them were white and because they went missing along with Cheney, 150 FBI agents and 200, what are the sailors from the local naval station? Shags. Shags. Shows up. Shows up to search

for these guys. Yeah. And Michael Schwerner's widow said this never would have happened if my husband had been a black man. Yeah. For all this was happening because he was white. I do want to, there's, this is rife with a lot of quotes that a lot of them were not going to read, but I did want to read this one from Howard Zen. This is the message at this orientation that you talked about at the Western College for Women in Oxford. So you're showing up, like, I want to volunteer, I want to do the right thing. They sit you down in an auditorium and say this, you'll arrive in Ruleville, which is a place.

And it is. Ruleville. In the Delta, it will be 100 degrees. You'll be sweaty and dirty. You won't be able to bathe off in her sleep well or eat good food. I don't know about that. I've got those some decent food.

That kind of stuck out to me too. Howard's in mind, not a thought so. The first day of school, there may be four teachers and three students. And the local Negro minister will phone you to say, you can't use his church basement after all because his life has been threatened. And the curriculum we've drawn up,

Negro history and American government may be something you know only a little about yourself. Well, you'll knock on doors all day in the hot sun to find students. You'll meet on someone's lawn under a tree. You'll tear up the curriculum and teach what you know. And it seems like that's really kind of what happened. It was very prescient. Yeah, I don't know if that quote was long after him describing it, but if that's what

they told them at orientation before the freedom school. And yeah, that's exactly how it ended up. And how many, I think originally they were gonna target, like I said, 11th and 12th graders, 20 schools, about 1,000 students. Right. But when, you know, when school day started, parents heard about this and brought everybody basically.

They did, something like, I've seen as much as 2,500, but at least 2,000 students were enrolled in freedom schools in Mississippi this summer. Yeah, and they doubled the number of schools plus one to 41. To 41. I think Haddie'sburg had six different schools. Meridian had a school with 200 students. That was the biggest one. They originally intended, like you said, 11th and 12th graders, maybe as young as middle schoolers, possibly, but really, that was it. And it ended up being elementary school kids. I believe there's an 80 year old enrolled at one of the freedom

schools. And it just became a sensation in Mississippi, among the African-American community. And there was a New York Times article. They sent a reporter down to kind of cover this. And the reporter was in Holly Springs. And there was a schoolteacher from Chicago named Aviva Futorian. And she said- They were probably like, are you from outer space? It kind of sounds like it. The silver jumpsuit she was wearing didn't help.

But she said that they were teaching under a sweet gum tree. you from outer space. Right? Kinda sounds like it. The silver jumpsuit she was wearing didn't help. But she said that they were teaching under a sweet gum tree. And this became kind of like, that was another reason why that Oxford quote from Howard's Inn was so pressy. And it's like a lot of times like they didn't have any place to actually meet, they had to meet outside or on somebody's front porch or something like that.

Because someone might say, like he said in the quote, like, hey, use my church basement, but then when the KK found out, they're, you know, they may burn across it in that church yard. And then that preacher has to say, I'm sorry, I can't take the risk. Well, so, you know, Schwerner and Cheney and Goodman, when they went, when they were murdered, a kidnap to murdered, they were investigating the burning of the church that they were going to be holding their freedom school.

That's what they were doing down there. And they went to go find out what happened and that's when they went missing. Yeah, so message sent loud and clear. So school was outside, which is every kid's favorite thing. Right, and then, as we'll see, there was another, there was at least one school that got fire bombed and burned to the ground.

After school had already started, I don't think it was like after hours. But the next day, the school met in the yard next to this burn-down building that they'd been meeting in the day before. Pretty amazing. So there was a lot of, I mean, this wasn't just going to school. There were, there was a lot of, I mean, this wasn't just going to school. There were, oh yeah, there's a whole state full of white people who Violently did not want you to be learning this stuff. Yeah, they were just as organized on you know the defense of this right or I guess the offense

Which would that be They weren't defending it. No to go on the offensive. Sure. I just got mixed up in my head. Yeah, you got it. Fine. All right So in the spring of 1964 they met and they were like listen, we need to get a curriculum together. Right. This is a real school They're gonna tear it up, but we're gonna get it down at least And the final one in had sections for like, writing, arithmetic, the three hours in science. But the bulk of it was what they called citizen curriculum, citizenship curriculum, which is basically like African-American civics, which they had never heard of and never learned. Yeah.

Like, I'm sure parents told them stories and stuff, but as far as going to school, they had never encountered anything like this before. Well, I mean depending on the age of their parents to their parents might have never heard anything like that before either It's good point. So there was the citizenship curriculum was broken into seven units and Each one built upon the last unit right it was meant to basically say here's the status quo the last unit. It was meant to basically say, here's the status quo, here's what's wrong with the status quo, here's how to change to the status quo, or basically the three buckets you could put everything in. I haven't read all of them, but I went and read the fourth one called the power structure, unit four. I would strongly recommend, I think the student nonviolent coordinating committee's digital archive has it digitized. Yeah, that think the student nonviolent coordinating committees digital archive

has it like digitized. Yeah, that's the one you sent me, right? But go read it. It's called Unifor introducing the power structure. And it explains how and why white people are taught to be afraid of and hate black people. How black people are taught that they're inferior and that the reason behind the whole thing is money and profits. And that all of the racism and hatred and fear and crime and all of that stuff is all just window dressing around this power structure that's meant to keep people survival and available for cheap labor

so that some people can profit more off of their work. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever read, but it's also one of the most eye-opening and it was designed for 11th and 12th graders back in the 60s and it still rings 100% true today. Yeah, the one that I'm gonna dig in and read, I didn't have time, but number six, material things and soul things.

So this is almost the last one on the citizenship curriculum units. And that is that black people will not achieve true freedom by trying to acquire more stuff But by using their insights about oppression to create a new kind of society And I think that's so important in these in this curriculum. It's like We're not trying to teach you like hey go out there and Try and gain status in society so you can get a bigger house

Right or or things that you see that these white people have. Which I'm sure you know, you covet things. That's what people do. So I'm sure that was a natural inclination. Like I want the stuff that they have. But it's so important to say like that the stuff isn't what matters. Well not only just stuff in general, but they kind of walk the students through it in this curriculum

where they say like, what are some things that white people have that you don't have that you wish you had? What are some things white people have that you don't want? The purpose of this curriculum wasn't to teach black kids to hate white kids. No. As a matter of fact, it actually teaches them to understand white people more. Let me read you this quote from this unit four. We have learned that although it seems that white people have better Let me read you this quote from this unit four. We have learned that, although it seems that white people have better schools, for instance,

that they pay for it by learning lies and by learning to hate and be afraid, we have learned that we are misled by these lies too, that the myths have taught us to believe that we are inferior and dumb and that we have made no contributions to society. So it's just saying like, don't hate white people. They're being duped by this too.

But their patsies in this power structure too, they just happen to not be the group that's being stepped on. Right. But they're still being used and abused. Yeah, school children in particular, for context. And well, and it's interesting in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in,

in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in most popular subjects in one of these schools was French, and they wanted to learn French because they knew white kids had a French teacher. Like something is innocuous as that. Like I want to learn French too.

Right. I mean, that was the point in schools, not just like sit down and shut up and listen. This is what we're here to teach you. It was, what do you want to learn? Yeah. What are you guys going to feel good about yourselves for knowing that you didn't know when you came in here? And so teaching in the Freedom Schools that summer was super improvisational and spontaneous. Yeah, collaborative. They really did tear up the curriculum in a lot of cases. Sounds like a good

model for school's period. Yeah, it sounds like one of those like Waldoer schools or a Montessori school or something like that. It sounds very much like one of those childhood. Yeah. Yeah or a Montessori school or something like that. It sounds very much like one of those child dead. Yeah. But I mean, that was the point was to not to drill them with what the adults thought they should learn, but to raise up their self-worth and self-esteem and whatever that took is what they taught them. Yeah, and it's cool that they didn't, not only were they concerned about civics and the

core academics, but something that could have concerned about civics and the core academics, but something that could have very easily been pushed to the side is creative pursuits. And they really embraced that because they found that these students were natural poets and really eager to get in there and read and write poetry. They read Robert Frost and Langston Hughes and Gertrude Stein and wrote a lot of poetry themselves. Some of it is just heartbreaking. Some of it inspiring. Some of it both. There was one school in Haddie Spurgman, Mississippi, Freedom School students of St. John's Methodist Church. They wrote their own declaration of independence. And it's all in here in this article.

We can't go through the whole thing, but I encourage you to read this thing in full. It's really, heavy, like, advanced stuff. It really is. There are also newspapers where really big at the Freedom Schools. And they qualified as alternative newspapers and that guy, John Hale, the professor from South Carolina who wrote the book on Freedom Schools.

Literally. Literally. He says that in Mississippi that summer, the Freedom Schools student-run newspapers were the biggest source of civil rights news in the entire state. Amazing. And that they were the state's first taste

of alternative news ever. But like almost all of the 41 schools had their own newspapers. And in some communities, that's how some adults were learning what they needed to do to go register to vote by reading it in the student run Freedom School newspaper. Yeah, I was a newspaper staffer.

I think you were too probably right? Sure. Or you just starting your own papers. Sure. But I was a newspaper staffer in high school. And there's something about like putting together a publication that even I see little kids doing for fun.

And I remember doing for fun. So it doesn't surprise me that like, that the newspaper was every school had their own and it seems like they were really, really into it. I could see your little family news for you. Like extra extra, mom puts too much hot sauce on eggs this morning. Dave ruined. Well, it's on my mind because I just got back from vacation and we went with one, two,

three, four older girls plus my younger daughter and they did a the beach blotter. They put together their own little magazines for the week. And I just remembered I'm like, man, kids are just drawn to putting together newspapers and magazines. And these kids in the freedom schools leapt at the chance to interview people and to, you know, be little cub reporters and type this stuff up. They were really big on taking typing classes because that would lead to work obviously later on as well.

I just thought it was really kind of a cool part of this whole thing. Yeah, I know, it's super cool. As was the theater, there was a traveling group called the Free Southern Theater that would perform a play called In White America, and they would go around to Freedom Schools and perform this play. Right. And there were music groups, the great, great folk singer and activist Pete Seeger went down there, of course, and toward the Freedom Schools.

Yeah. It was like, here's how you play a G-Cord and sing about things that matter. Pretty great. Why don't you go on over to the fridge, give me a frozen Snicker bar. No, no. I don't even like frozen Snickers. That's the big reveal at the end of the song.

But you know Lou Reed does. Sure. Or did. Yeah. All right, Pete. So should we take another break? Yeah. OK, we're going to take a break, everybody.

So sit tight and we'll be right back. MUSIC Living things with Chuck and Chuck. Chuck and all the things to stop you, Chuck and Chuck. MUSIC In the new Amy and TJ podcast, Amy Roboc and TJ Holmes, a renowned broadcasting team, with decades of experience delivering headline news and captivating viewers nationwide, are sharing their voices and perspectives in a way you've never heard before.

They explore meaningful conversations about current events, pop culture, and everything in between. Nothing is off limits. This was a scandal that wasn't. Yeah. And this was not what you've been sold. The Aimee and TJ podcast is guaranteed to be informative, entertaining, and above all, authentic. It marks the first time Robock and Holmes speak publicly since their own names became a part of the headlines. This is the first time that we actually get to say, what happened and where we are today. Listen to the Amy and TJ podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Mary K. McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. I write about true crime, which means I live inside the research wormhole, but I'm not necessarily interested in the headline grabbing elements, the blood and the gore, all of that. I'm more interested in the people behind these stories

and what we can learn by looking at their experiences. You can meet me every week on the greatest true crime stories ever told, where I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. She might be the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or some combination of these roles. I delve into the good, the bad, the difficult, and all the nuance I can find. Because these are the stories we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice,

and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the Elvis Taran in the morning show for a special gathering at I Heartland in State Farm Park. It's a holiday celebration with fun talks, plus a very special Elvis Terran in the morning

show poem, Twism Night After Christmas. Don't miss this special event starting Monday, December 18th at 7 p.m. Eastern at State Farm Park in I Heartland in Fortnite, available for a limited time. Afterwards, stick around and check out all the exciting things State Farm has to offer. Stay high to Jake from State Farm on the big screen and try to beat Jake Skour at the park or minigame. Visit iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartland to start playing today. So, like I said, Chuck, this experiment in pushing Mississippi into the civil rights era was not well received by the white power establishment.

And I think it kind of varied from one community to another. But none of them were happy from what I understand. And the ones that were unhappiest with the freedom schools were very, very violent in retaliation for these things. This one summer, this freedom summer lasted 10 weeks. I think the freedom schools lasted six weeks, but the freedom summer itself lasted 10 weeks. And in that 10 week period, 30 homes of black residents,

37 black churches were fire bombed. In one summer in Mississippi, demonstrators were shot at 35 different times by the police, okay. 80 volunteers were attacked or beaten by white mobs or police officers. There were six known murders that summer related to the freedom summer.

And female volunteers were sexually assaulted. It was a really violent, dangerous place to be doing what they were doing at the time. Yeah, there was one town, McComb, Mississippi. There were more than a dozen bombings in two months, more than 12 bombings in a two-month period. 12 and a half. And they were called the bombing capital of the world at the time.

Again, local police turning a blind eye. I get the impression that like they actually qualified as the bombing capital of the world. Yeah, it wasn't just a thing written in a free-to-school paper. Right, it wasn't like an off-handed comment. Like they may have qualified as the bombing capital of the world.

Yeah. It's crazy. And even if there wasn't like direct violence, there was indirect violence. Intimidation. Intimidation people would probably drive by and say the worst things. Right, exactly.

So it was not a struggle to just make it through the summer, but they did, as a matter of fact. And one of the goals of this freedom schools was to create or help get the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party, the antidote to the Dixie Crats in Mississippi, seated at the Democratic National Convention. And they attempted to do that and actually got a meeting at the credentials committee of the DNC, but we're ultimately turned down. Yeah, they had delegates, this is just amazing. They had delegates from all 41 of these schools and they met at a statewide convention in

Meridian, Mississippi, a place I have been through on a Greyhound bus. Wow, that's a country song and emotion right there. For sure. That was a place where they stopped us and the drug dogs got on. Oh, got you. In Meridian, huh? Yeah, and I was like, oh, interesting.

I never thought about Greyhound buses. It's probably a great way to transport drugs. Sure. But probably not. Hey, it's speaking of country music. Have you seen that Ken Burns documentary? Not yet. I've heard it's great.

Oh my. Is it good? I'm in the country music now. Well, I saw your Dixie chicks tattoo on your neck, so I wonder what that was all about. It's just pen right now. I haven't pulled the trigger all the way up. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing that. It's good.

So, they wrote these kids. These delegates went down there. They wrote their own political platform for the MFDP. And it was, it's amazing, like these are kids that in six weeks' time went from just basically having no hope whatsoever to fully forming a delegation and writing their own political platform and presenting it in public. Right. It wasn't like, hey, let's get these kids seated at the DNC.

The Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party was made up of adult activists, but the kids from their freedom schools helped to write their platform. They also formed from this delegation that met at the end of the summer, the Mississippi Student Union. And this actually brought to fruition one of the other stated goals of freedom schools, which was creating the next generation of activists. Because when freedom school was over and sharecropper schools started back again, or even integrated schools around the state, all of a sudden there were kids wearing like one man, one vote buttons, which could get

you expelled and actually did get some kids expelled. But there were like little civil rights activists showing up to school, aware now of the situation they were dealing with and ready to take it on. Yeah, 25 of them volunteered to be the first to desegregate their local high schools. Yeah. So that call comes out like we have to desegregate who's going to be the one. I know just the people to walk in there and 25 of these graduates of the Freedom Schools did so.

Yeah. So it was a big deal. I mean, they managed to create the next generation of activist leaders, but one of the other, kind of the through lines of the civil rights struggle during this time and of the freedom schools themselves, was the idea that if you had, I think the quote was, if you have strong people, or no,

strong people don't need strong leaders. Right. And a civil rights activist named Ella Baker said that. And the point was like, if you teach everybody how to struggle for themselves, how to fight for themselves, how to stand up for themselves, you don't have to wait around for a once in a handful of generations, person like Martin Luther King, Jr.

to come along and lead the way. Right. The people can lead the way themselves. And that was one of the things that they were doing with the freedom schools. Not just trying to come up with the next leaders, they needed leaders, sure, but also to make everybody who came to the freedom school like a wear and ready

for action. So one of the sad legacies was, we said at the beginning that what they wanted to do was one of their big goals was to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at that 64 convention in August. They won a public hearing, which was a big win in and of itself, with the DNC committee that was broadcast on live TV.

The widow of Michael Schorner showed up to talk, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. showed up to talk. And the last one, and this is just very sad and shameful, the last speaker, and they said, Dave describes her as the most dangerous to that democratic establishment, was a former sharecropper named Fannie Lou Hamer. Did you see her testimony? Yeah. she was brave as they come she was as brave as they come but her brave and pissed yeah but her testimony was interrupted on national TV by president Lyndon Johnson he called an impromptu press conference in the middle of her testimony so all the TV breaks away of course because the president has a press conference I need to get

to right and everyone was thinking all right this is big news he's gonna announce his VP pick for the 64 election or something like that. And he basically got on TV and sort of ad lib had today is the nine-month anniversary of the assassination of JFK. And black people all around the country and white liberal progressives are going,

what's a nine-month anniversary? Like are you kidding me? Not just liberals and civil rights activists, but the news too, saw right through it. Oh, sure. And it actually backfired because Johnson interrupting Fannie Lou Hamer became news itself. Yeah. And so Fannie Lou Hamer's testimony stayed on the news for days afterward, got way more exposure because of Johnson's clumsy

ham-fisted attempt. And the reason why her testimony and the idea of a Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party was a threat to the Democrats was because if you got rid of the Dixie Crats, if you forced integration on the South, you were going to lose the Solid South. The South had always voted Democrats because they hated the Republicans because the Republicans were the party of Lincoln who forced Reconstruction on them. Right. So Reconstruction comes along and all of the Southerners went Democrat and they formed the Dixie

Crats, right? Right. Well, when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Amendment in 1965, he said to an aide, we just handed the South to the Republicans for a very long time. And it's still the case. Still today, you are a hard press to find a county in the South that's blue. They're all red. Yeah, well, that's not quite true, but.

Nope, it's 100 percent true. But I mean, okay, let me put it this way. Atlanta's as blue as blue gets. The mid-Jup, but how many Atlanta's are there in this house? No, that's I'm saying, you know, it's like anywhere else. The urban centers sure are where the blues are. But I mean, like the north, the northern and southern suburbs, they're all red. Yeah. I mean, Atlanta's like a little island, a blue and a thing of red. Yeah. It's just weird to think that that's the legacy

of this time. Still. Yeah. So some of these students ended up to go on and do great things. I think, dare I say, many of them went on to do great things on a smaller scale, but some were sort of known nationally. And were pioneers in the black community.

One man, Eddie James Carthane, he was the first black mayor in the Mississippi Delta. Very, very big deal. He was elected mayor at the age of 28. Which I mean back then though, 28 was like 50 today. Really? Sure. You know, aging's really regressed since then.

And we talked earlier about the fact that these schools continue. They only operated in 1964, but a few of them were transformed into freedom centers, and they were meeting places for the Mississippi student union. They were community meeting places, educational resources, kindergarten would go there during the day, they would have adult classes at night. And in the 1980s is when the Children's Defense Fund created its own version of the Freedom Schools

all those years later, and they now operate in 87 cities across 28 states with their main focus being literacy. Yeah, it's pretty great. But they still honor their African heritage because the school they begins with a Harambee traditional African welcoming celebration with songs and chance. That goes a little something like go on over to the forage. Have you noticed like it's kind of

transformed into singing? It was talking before. You're ditching your new readness. I guess so, I've outgrown them. Well, if you want to know more about Freedom Schools, there's a lot of it archived out there on the internet. And you could do a lot worse than starting out at the student nonviolent coordinated committee's digital archives. They've got a lot of cool stuff on there. It's just really, really well done.

Nice, short punchy articles that link to the next thing and the next thing and just make you want to keep reading. Well, since I said, student nonviolent coordinating committee, it's time for a listener, mate. So this was the, this is the gentleman who wrote in. We had a few people that wrote in trying to explain our confusion on due process. Oh, is this the guy I was like?

This is the guy. Okay, good. Which one was that in? That was in... It was in Perifelius. Perifelius. Because we were talking about like people going to prison for gay sex in their own home.

Right. Concenting in Texas in the 21st century. And this is from Keith from Philadelphia. Not a con law professor, guys, just a law student. But I thought I could help clear this up in the Lawrence V. Texas due process point. Due process is essentially broken up into two prongs. Procedural procedural.

That's a good bill, three year old, my son. Procedural and substantive. Can I say that right? It's between. Procedural due process is exactly what Josh was talking about. Provides you notice an opportunity to be heard before rights are taken away from you. Substantive due process is what the court was referring to in Lawrence. The concept is somewhat complicated but simply stated.

Substantive due process just means certain rights that are so fundamental that no amount of process or procedure could ever legitimately deprive you of them. In other words, consenting adults have such a fundamental right to privacy behind closed doors that to punish them for having consensual sex will violate their due process rights no matter how much procedure they are afforded. Got it. I mean, that is as clear as Bell. As clear as Bell. Future, future law professor.

I'm losing it here. Yeah, thank you Keith from Philly. Thank you Keith. That was a, I mean, I emailed them immediately. And he's like a lot of people have written. And then thanks to everybody wrote in and gave it a shot. But I emailed them back and I was like, Keith, this is the first one I've fully gotten.

Yeah, Keith, and I think if you stroll on over to your refrigerator, you will find a frozen sneaker bar waiting on you. Cause we snuck into your home in the middle of the night. Or as Chuck would say, a frozen one. If you want to get in touch with us like Keith did, you can go on to stuffvichanow.com and check out our social links

where you can send us a good old fashioned email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, maybe send it along with the Frozen Stinkerbar to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. In the new Amy and TJ podcast, news anchors Amy Robock and TJ Holmes explore everything from current events to pop culture in a way that's informative, entertaining and authentically groundbreaking.

Join them as they share their voices for the first time since making their own headlines. This is the first time that we actually get to say, what happened and where we are today. Listen to the Amy and TJ podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary K. McBrayer, host of the podcast, the greatest true crime stories ever told, where I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. I'm Mary K. McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told,

where I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. She might be the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or some combination of those roles. These are the stories we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Listen to The Greatest-crime stories ever told on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the Elvis Taran in the morning show for a special gathering at I Heartland in State Farm Park.

It's a holiday celebration with fun talks plus a very special Elvis Taran in the morning show poem Twizz the Night After Christmas. Don't miss this special event starting Monday, December 18th at 7 p.m. Eastern at State Farm Park in I Heartland in Fortnight. Available for a limited time. Afterwards, stick around and check out all the exciting things State Farm has to offer. Stay high to Jake from State Farm on the big screen and try to beat Jake Skour at the Park or Mini Game.

Visit iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartland to start playing today. today.