User:Mke4think

The San Francisco Freedom School (SFFS) was founded in 2005 by four education activists (Kathy Emery, Sherri Sawyer, Sandra Mitchell and Sylvia Braselmann). The four co-founders were partly inspired by the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools and partly by the marginalization of black history in the public schools due to high-stakes testing. The SF Freedom School's main project is its Summer Program. The summer program features Civil rights movement veterans as its guest speakers.

History of SFFS
Sherri, Sandra and Kathy met while working with the SF Organizing Project around small school reform from 2000-2004. In February, 2005, they came to the conclusion that there was a need for a freedom school in San Francisco. Each of the co-founders came to this conclusion from different places. Sylvia and Kathy had been working together on a book on the 1964 Freedom Schools (Lessons from Freedom Summer). Sherri was working with at-risk youth in the southeast part of San Francisco and with parents concerned about the lack of educational opportunity for their children. Sandra saw that African American children were not learning black history in school and needed a place to learn it (ideally from black teachers). Sylvia belonged to St. Francis Lutheran Churchand offered to find out if they would house us for that summer. They agreed to do so and they proceeded to launch their program. The first summer around forty people (ages 16 to 86) attended in total, only eight came to every Saturday session. Every summer, 2 or 3 of the participants join the SFFS planning committee, which has grown from the four original co-founders to 16 people by 2008.

Mission of the SF Freedom School
"Through film, text, discussion and eyewitness testimony, the Freedom School offers hope in a time of despair, and authenticity in an era of distortion and deception. The program provides activists, educators, students and adults with an opportunity to analyze how social movements are formed. This is done through studying the Civil Rights movement as a case study of how everyday people, not just famous leaders, contributed to ending segregation in the South. This allows participants in the Freedom School to renew their commitment to, rekindle their passion for and find greater clarity in how to promote social justice in the Bay Area today."

Civil Rights History as a Case Study
The Freedom School founders believe that Civil Rights history (or more accurately, the history of the Southern Freedom Movement) is useful as a case study for several reasons. It is recent enough so that its participants are still alive to tell their stories, which conveys a reality that no textbook or lecturer can convey. It is far enough in the past to allow us to gain an understanding of how the historical context affects the success and failure of individual and collective action. It is an example of a protest movement that fundamentally changed institutions and ideas in this country. The SFFS co-founders believe that the authentic and detailed story of the Civil Rights movement contains many lessons that are crucial to understand today for those who wish to successfully build the next social movement. Some of the important lessons an in-depth study of the Civil Rights movement can teach are the following:


 * Movement building is a long and slow process, requiring patience, understanding, community, courage, tenacity and faith;
 * Leftists need to learn how to create coalitions with one another;
 * Nonviolent direct action is a crucial element of the success of a movement;
 * Local, neighborhood leadership must be nurtured and developed within the context of community;
 * Just laws can only be enforced by continuous local community action;
 * Local actions need to be coordinated with regional and national strategies;
 * The arts—music, theater, murals, cartoons, etc—are an important part of fostering understanding, courage and community.