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Monroe County NAACP urges revival of Freedom Schools and circulates steering committee sign-up
Summary
At a community forum in Monroe County, Dr. Charles Nams and youth leader Anaya Boon traced the origins of Freedom Schools to Freedom Summer and urged the community to revive local programs focused on literacy, civic education and Black history; the NAACP circulated sign-up sheets for a steering committee and said it will support community-led work.
MONROE COUNTY — The Monroe County chapter of the NAACP urged residents on Sunday to revive local “Freedom Schools,” emphasizing literacy, honest Black history and civic education as tools to confront ongoing racial and educational inequities.
“I contend that education — preschool through 16 — was and still is a mechanism used to perpetuate false theories of racial superiority,” said Dr. Charles Nams, a professor emeritus in Indiana University’s Office of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, in a keynote that traced Freedom Schools to the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign. “Once you learn to read, you will forever be free,” he said, drawing applause.
The nut graf: Speakers at the NAACP’s third Brown v. Board of Education session said Freedom Schools were born from civil-rights organizing that combined intensive literacy instruction with civic and citizenship education. They urged Monroe County residents to lead a local program rather than wait for institutional change, and circulated sign-up sheets for a community steering committee.
Dr. Nams outlined…
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