MovementSummer 1964
Freedom Schools of 1964: what they taught and why
How the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools began, what their citizenship and Black history curriculum taught, and what students did at the Meridian convention.
In short
Freedom Schools were summer schools for Black Mississippi children and teenagers set up during Freedom Summer 1964. SNCC worker Charlie Cobb proposed them in December 1963 because Mississippi's segregated public schools gave Black students little and taught nothing about civil rights. Coordinated by historian Staughton Lynd, 41 schools taught a Citizenship Curriculum and Black history in churches, homes and community centers. At summer's end, student delegates met in Meridian and wrote a platform for the Freedom Democratic Party.
- Proposed
- December 1963, by Charlie Cobb (SNCC)
- Coordinator
- Staughton Lynd, Spelman College historian
- Schools
- 41 by the end of summer 1964
- Enrollment
- More than 3,000 students (figures vary)
- Curriculum
- Citizenship Curriculum and Guide to Negro History
- Convention
- Meridian, August 1964, run by students
Why did Mississippi need Freedom Schools?
Black public schools in Mississippi in 1964 were segregated, underfunded and barred from teaching anything that questioned segregation. Many rural schools closed for weeks during planting and harvest so children could work in the fields, as Fannie Lou Hamer had done. In December 1963 Charlie Cobb, a SNCC field secretary in the Delta, proposed using the coming summer volunteers to run schools that would give young people what the state did not: honest history, room to ask questions, and the confidence to act.
What did the curriculum include?
The schools used two main guides: a Citizenship Curriculum built around discussion questions about students' own lives, and a Guide to Negro History. The Citizenship Curriculum asked students what the majority culture had that they wanted, what it had that they did not want, and what they had that they wanted to keep. History classes covered African kingdoms, slavery and resistance, Reconstruction and the movement around them. The SNCC Digital Gateway notes a class on the Haitian Revolution at the Holly Springs school.
Teachers were mostly volunteers, many with no teaching experience, coordinated by Staughton Lynd, a historian at Spelman College. Schools met wherever there was space: church basements, porches, community centers.
What was the Meridian convention?
In early August 1964 student delegates from all 41 schools met in Meridian and drafted a platform for the Freedom Democratic Party. The platform covered public accommodations, housing, schools and jobs. The SNCC Digital Gateway reports that the convention laid the foundation for the Mississippi Student Union. Students also wrote poetry and produced newspapers about the summer.
What came after?
Many Freedom School students became activists, and the model influenced alternative and community schools across the country. The schools showed that young Black Mississippians were ready to study and organize. Fannie Lou Hamer's later work for Head Start in Sunflower County grew from the same conviction that education had to start early and be controlled by the community it served. See our page on Hamer and education, and use our lesson plan for a classroom version of the Freedom School questions.
Questions readers ask
Who attended Freedom Schools?
Mostly Black children and teenagers, though adults came to evening classes too. Attendance was voluntary, and enrollment grew through the summer.
Was there a Freedom School in Ruleville?
Yes. A Freedom School operated in Ruleville in the summer of 1964, one of dozens across the state.
What subjects did Freedom Schools teach?
Reading, writing and math, plus a Citizenship Curriculum that asked students to examine their own society, and Black history from Africa through the freedom movement. Some schools offered typing, foreign languages, drama and journalism.
Why is this page called uhuruII.html?
The address comes from an earlier site on this domain that used Uhuru, the Swahili word for freedom, in a series of page names. We kept it and used it for the Freedom Schools.
Sources
- Freedom SchoolsSNCC Digital Gateway
- Freedom SummerWikipedia (enrollment figures)
- Ruleville, MississippiWikipedia
- Freedom Summer 60Mississippi Department of Archives and History
We checked every date and name on this page against the sources above. If you find an error, write to contact@fannielouhamer.info.
Continue in the archive
- MovementFreedom Summer 1964What Freedom Summer was, who the mostly white student volunteers were, how they trained, what they faced in Mississippi and how Ruleville and Hamer took part.
- Teach & rememberHamer and educationHow Fannie Lou Hamer's own short schooling shaped her work for citizenship classes, Freedom Schools, Head Start centers and school desegregation in Sunflower County.
- Teach & rememberFree lesson planA free lesson plan for grades 6 to 12 built on Fannie Lou Hamer's 1964 testimony and other primary sources, with objectives, steps, questions and a rubric.
- MovementThe meaning of UhuruThe Swahili word uhuru means freedom. How it became a rallying cry of African independence and how its language reached the American civil rights movement.