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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, happy Saturday. I hope you have your cereal

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Speaker 1: and your bowl and you've watched some Saturday morning cartoons

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Speaker 1: and you are in your comfy's chair. Because the select

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Speaker 1: that I'm picking for you is a great history episode

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Speaker 1: from October twenty nineteen. But what were the Freedom Schools?

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Speaker 1: It's a great story that needed to be told by us,

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Speaker 1: and so we did so, so I hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 1: We love our episodes on the civil rights era, and

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Speaker 1: this is a real good one, so check it out. Now,

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Speaker 1: What were the Freedom Schools? Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and

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Speaker 2: there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.

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Speaker 2: And I don't know if I said it or not,

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Speaker 2: but I'm Josh Clark and this is stuff you should know,

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Speaker 2: and I'm pretty excited about this one. Freedom Freedom Schools.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we would be the best singing duo ever. If

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Speaker 1: that's how it worked, I would just go big and

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Speaker 1: you would just read it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Is that? What I'm doing is lou reading

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Speaker 2: I don't even know my own heritage sort of speak singing,

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, you know, yeah, that's what lou Reid did. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: maybe go to the refrigerator, baby.

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Speaker 1: Remember the great song about the fridge.

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Speaker 2: Right, give me one of those frozen snicker bars. You're

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Speaker 2: not the ice cream kind, the actual snicker bar I

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Speaker 2: put into the freezer. Bring it over here, baby, that song.

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Speaker 1: That's the one, and Nico would go, I am placing

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Speaker 1: it in the freezer.

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Speaker 2: Was she German? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, she had to be German. Was she German? I

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Speaker 1: mean she was if not German, Austrian or something.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm just saying I didn't even know. I knew

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Speaker 2: nothing about her except Nico sat in with the velvet

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Speaker 2: underground for a.

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Speaker 1: While than my amazing vocal talents.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was good. That's what clued me to the

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Speaker 2: idea that she was as a gemins.

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Speaker 1: There's a movie about her later years that I want

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Speaker 1: to see that came out this year or something.

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Speaker 2: I think it's called Taking Liam Neeson played it. That's right, So, Chuck,

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Speaker 2: we're talking about freedom schools, as we already said, and

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Speaker 2: then we got silly. Now we're getting back to it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's right, because this is not a silly topic. No,

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Speaker 1: but and it has a CoA at the beginning. Shall

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Speaker 1: we talk about that, Yeah, I think we should. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this is about the Freedom Schools, which, as you

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Speaker 1: will very soon find out, we're in Mississippi during the

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Speaker 1: Civil rights movement.

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Speaker 2: I mean, like in probably the most dangerous place in

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Speaker 2: the country. Yeah, during the most dangerous point in the

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Speaker 2: civil rights movement. That's where this story takes place.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And freedom schools were great, and they were

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Speaker 1: a great thing, and we're happy to be talking about them.

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Speaker 1: But and a lot of the quotes and a lot

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Speaker 1: of the curriculum of the Freedom schools themselves, they use

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Speaker 1: the word negro, and it's obviously not a word that

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Speaker 1: people use anymore, but some of the curriculum class titles

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Speaker 1: feature that word. And so just letting everyone know that

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Speaker 1: that's coming, right, And we're not going to say we're

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Speaker 1: just going to read their curriculums and their books as

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Speaker 1: it existed back then.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this heads up. Yeah, we were just

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Speaker 2: kind of sticking to the vernacular of the times being

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Speaker 2: used in context.

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Speaker 1: Yes, within reason, of course.

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Speaker 2: Sure. So, so this takes place in the summer of

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. But I want to go back a

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Speaker 2: little further than that to nineteen fifty four with the

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Speaker 2: the groundbreaking sea changing Board Brown Versus Board of Education ruling,

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Speaker 2: where the Supreme Court said, you know that separate but

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Speaker 2: equal thing that we said back in eighteen ninety six

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Speaker 2: was constitutional. Yeah, that's not true. Segregation is not constitutional.

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Speaker 2: It's not legal anymore. Everybody needs to integrate schools at least,

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Speaker 2: but they failed to say and do it by nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty four or nineteen sixty or next year. They just said,

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Speaker 2: I think something like in a like a deliberate and

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Speaker 2: speedy manner or something like that. And so Mississippi said, oh, well,

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Speaker 2: you didn't tell us when we had.

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Speaker 1: To do it by about never.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let me just dig my heel in here and

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Speaker 2: the other one in here, and we're just going to

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Speaker 2: keep our schools segregated. And not only segregated. Mississippi had

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Speaker 2: some of the poorest excuses for schools for African American

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Speaker 2: students in the country. The state average for Mississippi, I

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Speaker 2: think in nineteen sixty was that they spent four times

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Speaker 2: more on schools for white children than they did on

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Speaker 2: schools for black children. That was just the state average,

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Speaker 2: and sometimes it was way worse.

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Speaker 1: You're talking about budgets, spinning budgets.

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Speaker 2: In Tunica, they spent one hundred and seventy two dollars

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Speaker 2: and eighty cents per white pupil on average in nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty two.

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Speaker 1: That's per year that was in that year school year one.

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Speaker 2: Hundred and seven to eighty. They spent five dollars or

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Speaker 2: ninety nine cents per black people.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's just kind of how it was like.

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Speaker 2: You went to school in sharecropper schools or what they

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Speaker 2: were called. If you were a black kid and you

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Speaker 2: were you got a terrible education. By comparison white kids.

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Speaker 2: Schools usually ran for about six months out of the year. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: if you were an African American kid in Mississippi, your

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Speaker 2: school might run three if if it was even open

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Speaker 2: that year. The rest of the time, you were expected

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Speaker 2: to be out in the field working and just knowing

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Speaker 2: your place basically.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, as you'll see throughout this podcast,

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Speaker 1: those sharecropper schools not only did they fail them fundamentally

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Speaker 1: on things like literacy and maths and things like that,

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Speaker 1: but they also failed them historically because and I think

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Speaker 1: things have gotten a lot better, but one could make

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Speaker 1: the argument that history classes still fail historically and telling

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Speaker 1: the true picture of some of these things. Absolutely, But

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Speaker 1: back then it was like at the sharecropper schools here

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Speaker 1: you're learning white history, and it's not just like this

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Speaker 1: is the important history, but this is the only history.

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Speaker 1: Yours does not matter exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and even worse than that, when they were taught

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Speaker 2: about their heritage or whatever, it was usually in relation

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Speaker 2: to slavery, and it was also in relation to how

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Speaker 2: black people preferred to be slaves and that they were

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Speaker 2: far worse off after the War of Northern Aggression freed them.

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Speaker 2: And that was just they weren't interested in politics, they

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Speaker 2: weren't really self starters, and they needed white people to

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Speaker 2: guide them. That was the education. You guy as an

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Speaker 2: African American kid in Mississippi around the time of the

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Speaker 2: Civil Rights struggle, and by the time nineteen sixty four

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Speaker 2: rolled around, there was a lot of agitation going on

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Speaker 2: in the African American community. A lot of people saw, hey,

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Speaker 2: there's no integration going on, things haven't changed at all,

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Speaker 2: were being kept down by Jim Crow era laws, and

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Speaker 2: we're going to agitate for change. And in response to that,

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Speaker 2: there was a lot of violence against that agitation for

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Speaker 2: change from the KKK, from state police, from local sheriffs,

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Speaker 2: from the local sheriffs redneck, Yeah, like you could get

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Speaker 2: yourself killed just by going to vote, registered to vote.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And if the police were not inciting or committing

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Speaker 1: the violence themselves, they certainly would turn a blind eye, yeah,

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Speaker 1: to anything that was going on exactly and not do

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Speaker 1: police work.

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Speaker 2: So it's in this context around December of nineteen sixty

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Speaker 2: three that a guy named Robert Moses, who was one

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Speaker 2: of the members of I believe, he was with Core

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Speaker 2: the No I'm sorry, he was with SNICK, the student

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Speaker 2: Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi, and he said, I've got

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Speaker 2: an idea. We're gonna call it Freedom Summer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And the Freedom Summer. And by the way, big

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Speaker 1: shout out to Dave Ruse, big shout out one of

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Speaker 1: our stable of writers these days from the old house

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Speaker 1: Stuffworks dot com website. Dave is helping us out. And

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Speaker 1: boy he does a great job.

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Speaker 2: He does.

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Speaker 1: It's always a pleasure. Yeah, So thanks Dave. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Freedom Summer was in nineteen sixty four, and the

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Speaker 1: whole goal of the Freedom Summer was really to get

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Speaker 1: people registered to vote en mass right.

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Speaker 2: That was the stated goal of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, the subtext of it.

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Speaker 2: John Hale wrote a book on Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools,

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Speaker 2: which we're going to talk about, and he actually helped

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Speaker 2: Dave out with this article, So shout out to John

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Speaker 2: Hale too. But he had a quote from John Lewis,

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Speaker 2: the Great John Lewis, who said, basically, the point of

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Speaker 2: Freedom Summer was to force a showdown between local authorities

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Speaker 2: and federal authorities, because the local authorities were abusively enforcing

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Speaker 2: white supremacy and the fed authorities were turning a blind

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Speaker 2: eye to it, and so they said, we need to

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Speaker 2: put ourselves in visible harm's way and force a showdown

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Speaker 2: between these two entities.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in nineteen sixty four is key. It wasn't just

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Speaker 1: sort of picked randomly. It was key because the Civil

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Speaker 1: Rights Act was going to be signed in July that year,

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Speaker 1: but it did not include black voting rights protection, and

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Speaker 1: the Democratic National Convention was going to be at the

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Speaker 1: end of August of that year in Atlantic City. And

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Speaker 1: this is basically like, let's get black folks registered to

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Speaker 1: vote so they can go in there and unseat these Dixiecrats.

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Speaker 1: The Southern Democrats who were still very much segregationists.

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Speaker 2: In Mississippi for the Democratic Convention. Their delegation, the Mississippi delegation,

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Speaker 2: was all white.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was another big, big goal, was to

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Speaker 1: create a separate black delegation for that national convention.

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Speaker 2: So to get this to force the showdown between local

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Speaker 2: authorities and federal authorities. The civil rights activists like Robert

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Speaker 2: Moses working in Mississippi had zero illusions that the federal

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Speaker 2: government was going to come down and help them out,

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Speaker 2: no matter what they were doing. Instead, they would be

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Speaker 2: forced to act if white Northern kids, the children of

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Speaker 2: these federal authorities, came down to Mississippi and put themselves

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Speaker 2: in harm's way too.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Kids meaning you know, college students, right right, So

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Speaker 1: kids to old folks like us, right, exactly, youngsters, but

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Speaker 1: they weren't sending down like twelve year olds.

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Speaker 2: No, no, no, nothing like that, but like college students who

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Speaker 2: wanted to come down and help people who truly believed

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Speaker 2: in the cause of civil rights.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, white, liberal, progressive, Northern oftentimes Jewish, but not always.

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Speaker 2: But as far as getting the federal authorities to pay attention,

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Speaker 2: that first descriptor is the most important one White. Yes,

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Speaker 2: because again they knew in Mississippi no federal authorities were

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Speaker 2: going to pay attention to that. And I mean they

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Speaker 2: had good reason to think that Kennedy had the Civil

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Speaker 2: Rights Act as far back as nineteen sixty but agreed

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Speaker 2: not to bring it up in Congress because they were

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Speaker 2: still trying to figure out how to keep the Dixiecrats happy,

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Speaker 2: right and maybe get some sort of integration going or

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Speaker 2: civil rights going, And they've just been left hung out

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Speaker 2: to dry by the federal authorities so many times that

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Speaker 2: they were totally right in that assumption.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And they knew that in order to really affect change,

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Speaker 1: like you said, they were going to get no assistance

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Speaker 1: from the federal government, so they need to do it

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Speaker 1: on the ground, grassroots style. And what they were really

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Speaker 1: looking toward was the future, and they knew that getting

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Speaker 1: kids involved was the key and the only way to

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Speaker 1: do that. Or they figured the best way to do that,

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Speaker 1: and I think they were right was to devise what

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Speaker 1: was called the Freedom Schools in the summer of nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty four, which ended up being forty one summer schools,

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Speaker 1: community based summer schools where they had core curriculums for sure,

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Speaker 1: But what they really were trying to do is teach

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Speaker 1: young black kids about their history and their self worth

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Speaker 1: and give them a path forward in the United States.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, with a voice, like give them an education that

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Speaker 2: they couldn't find anywhere in those sharecropper schools. Where the

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Speaker 2: sharecropper schools point was to keep them down, uneducated, and

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Speaker 2: out of politics so that they couldn't vote. These freedom

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Speaker 2: schools were meant to do the exact opposite, Yeah, to

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Speaker 2: teach them their self worth, but also to say, like,

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Speaker 2: here's how you can actually enact change and to create

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Speaker 2: the next generation of civil rights activists in Mississippi. That

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Speaker 2: was the point of the Freedom.

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Speaker 1: School Yeah, And like it was hitting me as I

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Speaker 1: was reading this, how progressive that was, Yeah for nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty four, because that would be progressive now in places

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Speaker 1: like even Georgia.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, And it's still going on now, is we'll see,

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Speaker 2: Like the Children's Defense Fund revived the Freedom schools back

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Speaker 2: in the eighties, and I think they still have them,

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Speaker 2: and it does still have a tinge of subversion. Sadly,

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Speaker 2: teaching black kids in America they're self worth, Yeah, that's

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Speaker 2: that's sad.

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Speaker 1: All right, that's a great preamble. Should we take a break?

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Speaker 1: All right, we are going to take a break, and

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Speaker 1: we're going to come back and really dig into the

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Speaker 1: mission of the Freedom schools right after this things Okay,

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Speaker 1: So Freedom Schools again launched and proposed by s n

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Speaker 1: CC snick snick snick leader Charlie Cobb in December sixty three,

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Speaker 1: and they had three The original idea was, let's get

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Speaker 1: eleventh and twelfth graders because they're just on the cusp

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Speaker 1: of being in you know, in the real world. Arguably

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Speaker 1: already were in the real world. Yeah, you know what

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Speaker 1: I'm saying. And they had three stated purposes that they

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Speaker 1: wanted to accomplish. Supplement what they aren't learning in high

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Speaker 1: school simple enough. Number two, give them a broad intellectual

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Speaker 1: and academic experience during the summertime to bring back to

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Speaker 1: students in the classrooms I guess in the fall, and

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Speaker 1: then form the basis for statewide student action like here's

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Speaker 1: how you can boy caught something, here's how you can

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Speaker 1: raise awareness, like teach them how to be grassroots activists.

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Speaker 2: And also one of the things that they wanted to

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Speaker 2: teach them that we'll see is this is how things work, Like,

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Speaker 2: here's the nuts and bolts of this power structure that

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Speaker 2: we live in that holds us down, and here, understanding

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Speaker 2: how it works, you can start to poke around and

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Speaker 2: figure out how to overcome that. That was a huge,

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Speaker 2: huge part of it.

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Speaker 1: That's right. So it all starts with volunteers, right. And these,

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Speaker 1: like we said, are mainly college students. They saw this

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Speaker 1: by way of ads in the New York Times and

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Speaker 1: other groups and college campuses that basically said, hey, this

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Speaker 1: is what we want to do. You've been watching this

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Speaker 1: on TV every night. I know that you might live

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Speaker 1: in Manhattan or Brooklyn or someplace, but if you are

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Speaker 1: a young white liberal progressive and you really want to

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Speaker 1: make a difference, get off your couch and come down

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Speaker 1: to Mississippi for the summer. Sure in danger your life

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Speaker 1: and helped teach these kids.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think something like a thousand I saw,

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Speaker 2: like as much as twenty five hundred. A bunch of

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Speaker 2: people answered this call, Like northern mostly white college students

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Speaker 2: came down to Mississippi for this freedom summer, not just

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Speaker 2: the freedom schools.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think two hundred and eighty of them

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Speaker 1: ended up being teachers. Out of about the seven hundred

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Speaker 1: or so who volunteered for the Freedom Summer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've heard different stories on how the people

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Speaker 2: who got selected to be teachers for the Freedom schools

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Speaker 2: were selected. This article makes it sound like the greener ones,

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Speaker 2: the ones who really shouldn't be put in harm's way,

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Speaker 2: were assigned to the Freedom schools. But from what I've read,

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Speaker 2: they were very much in harm's way as being teachers

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Speaker 2: of these Freedom schools.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But regardless of who got assigned to become a Freedom

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Speaker 2: School teacher or why, they were told you're gonna have

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Speaker 2: to pay your way to and from Mississippi, You're gonna

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Speaker 2: have to pay your own room and board, so expect

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Speaker 2: to have to shell out over two hundred bucks or

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Speaker 2: up to two hundred bucks over the course of the summer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. It also said they would live basically in the

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Speaker 1: homes of local black families. I wonder if they paid

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Speaker 1: them rent.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if they paid them rent. But the

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Speaker 2: black families who did put these white Northern College students

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Speaker 2: up over the summer to teach Freedom schools very much

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Speaker 2: put their own families homes in harm's way. Because the

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Speaker 2: Freedom school and actually the whole Freedom Summer volunteers who

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Speaker 2: came down. They didn't take Mississippi by surprise. The white

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Speaker 2: power establishment Mississippi knew they were coming and they were

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Speaker 2: very unhappy about this. They said publicly that these people

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Speaker 2: would be treated as invaders, that this was a second

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Speaker 2: war of Northern Aggression. They doubled the number of highway

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Speaker 2: patrol officers and not to keep the peace. They knew

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Speaker 2: they were coming down, and they were not happy about

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Speaker 2: these Freedom schools or the Freedom Summer in general.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess we should go ahead and say

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Speaker 1: right off the bat to add gravity to the situation.

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Speaker 1: And there may be a short stuff in here. I've

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Speaker 1: been wanting to do one on the disappearance of these

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Speaker 1: three men. But the Core Training Crew Congress of Racial

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Speaker 1: Equality was Core and they were helping out with the

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Speaker 1: freedom rides in the early sixties on the buses in

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Speaker 1: Selma in the Deep South. And there were three gentlemen,

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Speaker 1: Andrew Goodman and Michael Scharner, two white men, and another colleague,

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Speaker 1: James Cheney, a young black man that worked with corr.

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Speaker 1: They went missing in Longdale, Mississippi, and were basically taken

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Speaker 1: and murdered. So this is this is before a few

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Speaker 1: months before the Freedom Schools were to launch, and you're

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Speaker 1: going down there knowing that these men disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it was like a week before basically,

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Speaker 2: because it happened like they got the news during the

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Speaker 2: orientation in Oxford, Ohio that they held for the Freedom

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Speaker 2: School teachers. The news came through that these three guys

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Speaker 2: had gone missing and then were later found murdered.

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Speaker 1: And some people did back out and were like, I

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Speaker 1: can't take this risk, but it seems like most of

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Speaker 1: them pressed on right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, and I think some people's resolve was doubled

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Speaker 2: by that kind of thing too. But their disappearance and

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Speaker 2: ultimately their deaths proved that idea that these the civil

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Speaker 2: rights activists in Mississippi needed these white Northern volunteers to

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Speaker 2: come down. Because James Cheney, he was a local Mississippi activist,

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Speaker 2: he was a black guy. And Schwarner, Michael Schwarner and

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Speaker 2: Goodman Goodman, both of them were white. And because they

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Speaker 2: went missing along with Cheney, one hundred and fifty FBI

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Speaker 2: agents and two hundred what are the sailors from the

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Speaker 2: local naval stations showed up. Sure showed up to search

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Speaker 2: for these guys. And Michael Schwarener's widow said, this never

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Speaker 2: would have happened if my husband had been a black man,

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Speaker 2: and all this was happening because he was white.

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Speaker 1: I do want to there's this is rife with a

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Speaker 1: lot of quotes that a lot of them were not

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Speaker 1: going to read, but I did want to read this

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Speaker 1: one from Howard Zen. This is the message at this

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Speaker 1: orientation that you talked about at the Western College for

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Speaker 1: Women in Oxford. So you're showing up like I want

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Speaker 1: to volunteer. I want to do the right thing. They

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Speaker 1: sit you down an auditorium and say this. You'll arrive

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Speaker 1: in Ruleville, which is a place in Ruleville in the Delta.

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Speaker 1: It will be one hundred degrees. You'll be sweaty and dirty.

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Speaker 1: You won't be able to bathe offen, or sleep well

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Speaker 1: or eat good food. I don't know about that. I

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Speaker 1: bet that was some pretty decent food.

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Speaker 2: That kind of stuck out to.

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Speaker 1: Me too, Howard Zen. Might it not have thought? So

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Speaker 1: the first day of school, there may be four teachers

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Speaker 1: and three students, and the local Negro minister will phone

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Speaker 1: you to say you can't use his church basement after all,

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Speaker 1: because his life has been threatened. And the curriculum we've

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Speaker 1: drawn up Negro history and American government may be something

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Speaker 1: you know only a little about yourself. Well, you'll knock

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Speaker 1: on doors all day in the hot sun to find students.

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Speaker 1: You'll meet on someone's lawn under a tree. You'll tear

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Speaker 1: up the curriculum and teach what you need. And it

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Speaker 1: seems like that's really kind of what happened.

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Speaker 2: It was very prescient. Yeah. I don't know if that

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Speaker 2: quote was long after in him describing it, but if

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Speaker 2: that's what they told them at orientation before the Freedom schools,

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Speaker 2: then yeah, that's exactly how it ended up.

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Speaker 1: And how many I think originally they were gonna target,

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Speaker 1: like I said, eleventh and twelfth graders, twenty schools, about

384
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Speaker 1: one thousand students, right, But when you know, when school

385
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Speaker 1: day started, parents heard about this and brought everybody.

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Speaker 2: Basically they did something like I've seen as much as

387
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Speaker 2: twenty five hundred, but at least two thousand students were

388
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Speaker 2: enrolled in Freedom Schools in Mississippi this summer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they doubled the number of schools plus one

390
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Speaker 1: to forty one.

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Speaker 2: To forty one some I think Hattiesburg had six different schools.

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Speaker 2: Meridian had a school with two hundred and two hundred students.

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Speaker 2: That was the biggest one. It was, and they originally intended,

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Speaker 2: like you said, eleventh and twelfth graders, maybe as young

395
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Speaker 2: as middle like middle schoolers possibly, but really that was it,

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Speaker 2: and it ended up being elementary school kids. I believe

397
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Speaker 2: there was an eighty year old enrolled at one of

398
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Speaker 2: the Freedom schools, and it just became a sensation in

399
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Speaker 2: Mississippi among the African American community, and there was a

400
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Speaker 2: there was a New York Times article. They sent a

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Speaker 2: reporter down to kind of cover this, and the reporter

402
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Speaker 2: was in Holly Springs and there was a school teacher

403
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Speaker 2: from Chicago named Aviva Futtorian, and she said.

404
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Speaker 1: They were probably like, are you from outer space?

405
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Speaker 2: Kind of sounds like it. The silver jump suit she

406
00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:36,080
Speaker 2: was wearing didn't help, but she said that they were

407
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Speaker 2: teaching under a sweet gum tree. And this became kind

408
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Speaker 2: of like. That was another reason why that Oxford quote

409
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Speaker 2: from Howard's Inn was so prescient. It's like a lot

410
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Speaker 2: of times like they didn't have any place to actually meet,

411
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Speaker 2: They had to meet outside or on somebody's front porch

412
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Speaker 2: or something like that.

413
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Speaker 1: Because someone might say, like he said in the quote,

414
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Speaker 1: like hey, use my church basement. But then when the

415
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Speaker 1: KKK there, you know, they may burn across it in

416
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Speaker 1: that churchyard, and then that preacher has to say, I'm sorry,

417
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Speaker 1: I can't take the risk.

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Speaker 2: Well, so you know Schwerner and Cheney and Goodman when

419
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Speaker 2: they went when they were murdered, kidnapped and murdered, they

420
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Speaker 2: were investigating the burning of the church that they were

421
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Speaker 2: going to be holding their freedom school. That's what they

422
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:20,640
Speaker 2: were doing out there, and they went to go find

423
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Speaker 2: out what happened, and that's when they went missing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so message sent loud and clear. So school is outside,

425
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Speaker 1: which is every kid's favorite.

426
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Speaker 2: Thing, right, and then we as we'll see, there was

427
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,359
Speaker 2: another There was at least one school that got fire

428
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Speaker 2: bombed and burned to the ground after school had already started.

429
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Speaker 2: I don't think any it was like after hours. But

430
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Speaker 2: the next day the school met in the yard next

431
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Speaker 2: to this burned down building that they'd been meeting in

432
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Speaker 2: the day before.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty amazing.

434
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Speaker 2: So there was a lot of I mean, this wasn't

435
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:54,919
Speaker 2: just going to school. There's a whole state full of

436
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:59,520
Speaker 2: white people who violently did not want you to be

437
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Speaker 2: learning this stuff.

438
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they were just as organized on you know, the

439
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:07,120
Speaker 1: defense of this right or I guess the offense, which

440
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:11,840
Speaker 1: would that be. They weren't defending it, no, to go

441
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:14,639
Speaker 1: on the offensive. Sure, I just got mixed up in

442
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 1: my head.

443
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:16,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got it finally, all right.

444
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 1: So in the spring of nineteen sixty four they met

445
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:21,679
Speaker 1: and they were like, listen, we need to get a

446
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 1: curriculum together, because this is a real school.

447
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 2: They're going to tear it up, but we're going to

448
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 2: get it down at least.

449
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: And the final one had sections for like I said, reading, writing, arithmetic,

450
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 1: the three RS, and science. But the bulk of it

451
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: was what they called citizen curriculum, citizenship curriculum, which is

452
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 1: basically like African American civics, which they had never heard of,

453
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 1: right and never learned. Yeah, Like, I'm sure parents told

454
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: them stories and stuff, but as far as going to school,

455
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 1: they had never encountered anything like this before.

456
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, depending on the age of their parents too,

457
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 2: their parents might have never heard anything like that before either.

458
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:05,440
Speaker 2: So there was the citizenship curriculum was broken into seven

459
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 2: units and each one built upon the last unit. It

460
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 2: was meant to basically say, here's the status quo, here's

461
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 2: what's wrong with the status quo, here's how to change

462
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 2: to the status quo. Or basically, the three buckets you

463
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 2: could put everything in, and the one. I haven't read

464
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 2: all of them, but I went and read the fourth one,

465
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 2: called the Power Structure, Unit four, and I would strongly recommend.

466
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:35,199
Speaker 2: I think the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee's digital archive

467
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 2: has it like digitized.

468
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when you sent me, right, But.

469
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 2: Go read it. It's called Unit four, Introducing the Power Structure,

470
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 2: and it explains how and why white people are taught

471
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:56,920
Speaker 2: to be afraid of and hate black people, how black

472
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 2: people are taught that they're inferior, and and that the

473
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 2: reason behind the whole thing is money and profits, and

474
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,719
Speaker 2: that all of the racism and hatred and fear and

475
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 2: crime and all that stuff is all just window dressing

476
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 2: around this power structure that's meant to keep people servile

477
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 2: and available for cheap labor so that some people can

478
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 2: profit more off of their work. It's the most disgusting

479
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 2: thing I've ever read, but it's also one of the

480
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 2: most eye opening, and it was designed for eleventh and

481
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 2: twelfth graders to back in the sixties, and it still

482
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 2: brings one hundred percent true today.

483
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one that I'm going to dig in and

484
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: read I didn't have time but number six material things

485
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: and soul things. So this is almost the last one

486
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: on the citizenship curriculum units, and that is that black

487
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 1: people will not achieve true freedom by trying to acquire

488
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: more stuff, but by using their insights about oppression to

489
00:25:57,359 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: create a new kind of society. And I think that's

490
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 1: so important in these In this curriculum, it's like we're

491
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: not trying to teach you like, hey, go out there

492
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: and try and gain status in society so you can

493
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: get a bigger house, right, or things that you see

494
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 1: that these white people have, right, which I'm sure was

495
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 1: you know, you covet things. That's what people do, so

496
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was a natural inclination, like I want

497
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: the stuff that they have. But it's so important to

498
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: say like that the stuff isn't what matters.

499
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 2: Well, not only just stuff in general, but there's they

500
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 2: kind of walk the students through it in this curriculum

501
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 2: where they say, like, what are some things that white

502
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 2: people have that you don't have that you wish you had.

503
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 2: What are some things white people have that you don't want?

504
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 2: And the purpose of this curriculum wasn't to teach black

505
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 2: kids to hate white kids. Now, as a matter of fact,

506
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 2: it actually teaches them to understand white people more. Yeah,

507
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 2: let me read you this quote from this unit four.

508
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:55,919
Speaker 2: We have learned that although it seems that white people

509
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 2: have better schools, for instance, that they pay for it

510
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 2: by learning lies and by learning to hate and be afraid.

511
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 2: We have learned that we are misled by these lies too,

512
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 2: that the myths have taught us to believe that we

513
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 2: are inferior and dumb, and that we have made no

514
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 2: contributions to society. So it's just it's saying like, don't

515
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 2: hate white people. They're being duped by this too, right,

516
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 2: But they're patsies in this power structure too. They just

517
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 2: happened to not be the group that's being stepped on, right,

518
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 2: you know, but they're still being used and abused.

519
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, school children in particular for context, and well, it's

520
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: interesting too when you just talked about like they wanted

521
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 1: the same things, not necessarily stuff as the white students.

522
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: One of the most popular classes because you know, they

523
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: would get in there and say, this is what I

524
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: want to learn. And that's the whole part about tearing

525
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: up the curriculum. One of the most popular subjects in

526
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 1: one of these schools was French, and they wanted to

527
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: learn French because they knew white kids had a French teacher.

528
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 1: Like something is innocuous as that, Like I want to

529
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: learn French.

530
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:04,640
Speaker 2: Too, right, And I mean that was the point in schools,

531
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 2: not just like sit down and shut up and listen,

532
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 2: this is what we're here to teach you. It was

533
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 2: what do you want to learn?

534
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: Yeah?

535
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 2: What are you guys going to feel good about yourselves

536
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 2: for knowing that you came You didn't know when you

537
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 2: came in here. And so teaching in the Freedom Schools

538
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 2: that summer was super improvisational and spontaneous. They really did

539
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 2: tear up the curriculum in a lot of a lot

540
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 2: of cases.

541
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: Sounds like a good model for schools period.

542
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like one of those like Waldorf schools

543
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 2: or a Monassori school or something like that. It sounds

544
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 2: very much like one of those childhood Yeah, but I

545
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 2: mean that was that was the point, was to not

546
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 2: to drill them with what the adults thought they should learn.

547
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 2: But to raise up their self worth and self esteem

548
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 2: and whatever that took is what they taught them.

549
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's cool that they didn't. Not only were

550
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: they concerned about civics and the core academics, but something

551
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: that could have very easily been pushed to the side

552
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: is creative pursuit. And they really embraced that because they

553
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: found that these students were natural poets and really eager

554
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: to get in there and read and write poetry. They

555
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: read Robert Frost and Langston Hughes and Gertrude Stein and

556
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: wrote a lot of poetry themselves. Some of it is

557
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: just heartbreaking, some of it inspiring, some of it both.

558
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 1: There was one school in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Freedom School, students

559
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: of Saint John's Methodist Church. They wrote their own declaration

560
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: of independence and it's all in here in this article.

561
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: We can't go through the whole thing, but I encourage

562
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: you to read this thing in full. It's really heady

563
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: like advanced stuff.

564
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 2: It really is. There are also newspapers were really big

565
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 2: at the Freedom schools, and they qualified as alternative newspapers,

566
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 2: and that guy John Hale, the professor from South Carolina

567
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 2: who wrote the book on Freedom Schools literally literally. He

568
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 2: says that in Mississippi that summer, the freedom schools student

569
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:01,959
Speaker 2: run newspapers were the biggest so of civil rights news,

570
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 2: can you believe in the entire states? Amazing, and that

571
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 2: they were the state's first taste of alternative news.

572
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: Yeah.

573
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 2: Ever, but that like almost all of the forty one

574
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 2: schools had their own newspapers, and in some communities that's

575
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 2: that's how some adults were learning what they needed to

576
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 2: do to go register to vote by reading it in

577
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 2: the student run freedom school newspaper.

578
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was a newspaper staffer. I think you were too,

579
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 1: probably right, Sure were you just starting your own papers?

580
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 2: Sure?

581
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: But I was a newspaper staffer in high school. And

582
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: there's something about like putting together a publication that even

583
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: I've seen little kids doing for fun, and I remember

584
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:42,959
Speaker 1: doing for fun. So it doesn't surprise me that like

585
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: that the newspaper was. Every school had their own, and

586
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: it seems like they were really really into it.

587
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 2: I could see your little family newspaper, You're like extra extra.

588
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 2: Mom puts too much hot sauce on eggs. This morning day.

589
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: Ruined well, it's on my mind because I just got

590
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: back from vacation and we went with one, two, three,

591
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: four older girls plus my younger daughter, and they did

592
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: the Beach Blotter. They'd put together their own little magazine

593
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 1: for the week, and I just remembered, I'm like, man,

594
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: kids are just drawn to putting together newspapers and magazines,

595
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: and these kids in the Freedom Schools leaped at the

596
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 1: chance to interview people and to be little cub reporters

597
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: and type this stuff up. They were really big on

598
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: taking typing classes because that would lead to work obviously

599
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: later on as well. I just thought it was really

600
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: kind of a cool part of this whole thing.

601
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, it's super cool.

602
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: As was the theater. There was a traveling group called

603
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: the Free Southern Theater that would perform a play called

604
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 1: in White America, and they would go around to Freedom

605
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: schools and perform this play. And there were music groups,

606
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: the Great Great Folks. Singer and activist Pete Seeger went

607
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: down there, of course and toured the Freedom schools. I

608
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: was like, here's how you play a G chord and

609
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: sing about like things that matter. Pretty great.

610
00:31:56,680 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 2: Why don't you go on over to the fridge rosen

611
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 2: snicker bone.

612
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I don't.

613
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 2: Even like frozen snickers. That's the big reveal at the

614
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 2: end of the song.

615
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: But you know, lou Reid does sure or did?

616
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 2: Yeah? So should we take another break?

617
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: Yeah?

618
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 2: Okay, We're going to take a break. Everybody, so sit

619
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 2: tight and we'll be right back and things.

620
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: Job and job.

621
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 2: So like I said, Chuck, this experiment in pushing Mississippi

622
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 2: into the civil rights era was not well received by

623
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 2: the white power establishment, and I think it kind of

624
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 2: varied from one community to another, and but none none

625
00:32:57,040 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 2: of them were happy from what I understand, and the

626
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 2: ones that were unhappiest with the Freedom Schools were very,

627
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 2: very violent in retaliation for these things. This one summer,

628
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 2: this Freedom Summer lasted ten weeks. I think the Freedom

629
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 2: Schools lasted six weeks, but the Freedom Summer itself lasted

630
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 2: ten weeks. And in that ten week period, thirty homes

631
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 2: of black residents, thirty seven black churches were fire bombed.

632
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 2: In one summer in Mississippi, demonstrators were shot at thirty

633
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 2: five different times by the police. Eighty volunteers were attacked

634
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 2: or beaten by white mobs or police officers. There were

635
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 2: six known murders that summer related to the Freedom Summer,

636
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 2: and female volunteers were sexually assaulted. It was a really violent,

637
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 2: dangerous place to be doing what they were doing at

638
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 2: the time.

639
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was one town, Macomb, Mississippi. There were more

640
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: than a dozen bombings in two months, more than twelve

641
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: bombings in a two month period, twelve and a half,

642
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: and there were they were called the bombing capital of

643
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: the world at the time, again local police turning a

644
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: blind eye.

645
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:14,359
Speaker 2: I get the impression that, like they actually qualified as

646
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 2: the bombing capital of the world.

647
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't just a thing written in a freedom

648
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 1: school paper, right, It.

649
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 2: Wasn't like an offhanded comment like they may have qualified

650
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:24,720
Speaker 2: as the bombing capital of the world.

651
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:26,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy.

652
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 2: And even if there wasn't like direct violence, there was

653
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 2: indirect violence, intimidation, intimidation. People would probably drive.

654
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 1: By and say the worst things.

655
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,359
Speaker 2: Get right exactly. So it was not it was a

656
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 2: struggle to just make it through this summer, but they

657
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 2: did as a matter of fact, and one of the

658
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 2: goals of this Freedom Schools was to create or help

659
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 2: get the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party, the antidote to the

660
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 2: Dixiecrats in Mississippi seated at the Democratic National Convention, and

661
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 2: they attempted to do that and actually got a meeting

662
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 2: at the Credentials Committee of the DNC, but we're ultimately

663
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 2: turned down.

664
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:14,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had delegates. This is just amazing. They had

665
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 1: delegates from all forty one of these schools and they

666
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 1: met at a statewide convention in Meridian, Mississippi, a place

667
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 1: I have been through on a greyhound bus.

668
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,879
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a country song in emotion right there.

669
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: For sure. That was a place where they stopped us

670
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: and the drug dogs got on.

671
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 2: Oh gotcha in Meridian?

672
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 1: Huh Yeah? And I was like, oh, interesting, I never

673
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:39,279
Speaker 1: thought about greyhound buses. Is probably a great way to

674
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 1: transport drugs, but probably not heys.

675
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:45,240
Speaker 2: Speaking of country music, have you seen that Ken Burns documentary?

676
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: Not yet. I've heard it's great. Oh my, it's good.

677
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 2: I'm in the country music now.

678
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 1: Well, I saw your Dixie Chicks tattoo on your neck,

679
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 1: So I wonder what.

680
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:56,760
Speaker 2: That was all about. Just pen right now, I haven't

681
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 2: I haven't pulled the trigger all the way.

682
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing that. So they

683
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: wrote these kids, these delegates went down there, they wrote

684
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: their own political platform for the MFDP, and it was

685
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: it's amazing, like, these are kids that in six weeks

686
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 1: time went from just basically having no hope whatsoever to

687
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:24,320
Speaker 1: fully forming a delegation and writing their own political platform

688
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: and presenting it in public. Right.

689
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 2: And it wasn't it wasn't like, hey, let's get these

690
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 2: kids citied at the DNC, Like the Mississippi Democratic Freedom

691
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 2: Party was made up of adult activists, but the kids

692
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 2: from the Freedom Schools helped write their platform. They also

693
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 2: formed from this delegation that met at the end of

694
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 2: the summer, the Mississippi Student Union. And this actually brought

695
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 2: to fruition one of the other stated goals of Freedom Schools,

696
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 2: which was creating the next generation of activists. Right, because

697
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 2: when Freedom School was over and Sharecropper School started back

698
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:01,920
Speaker 2: again or even integrated schools around the state, all of

699
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 2: a sudden there were kids wearing like one Man, one

700
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 2: Vote buttons, which could get you expelled, and actually did

701
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 2: get some kids expelled. But there were like little civil

702
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 2: rights activists showing up to school aware now of the

703
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 2: situation they were dealing with, and ready to take it on.

704
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty five of them volunteered to be the first

705
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:24,439
Speaker 1: to desegregate their local high schools. Yeah, so that call

706
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: comes out, like we have to desegregate. Who's going to

707
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,399
Speaker 1: be the one? I know, just the people to walk

708
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 1: in there, and twenty five of these graduates of the

709
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: Freedom Schools did so.

710
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:36,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was a big deal. I mean, they

711
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 2: managed to create the next generation of activist leaders. But

712
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 2: one of the other kind of the through lines of

713
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 2: the civil rights struggle during this time and of the

714
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 2: Freedom Schools themselves, was the idea that if you had

715
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 2: I think the quote was if you have strong people

716
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 2: or no, strong people, don't need strong leaders, And a

717
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 2: civil rights activist, nam Ela Baker said that, and the

718
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 2: point was like, if you teach everybody how to struggle

719
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:11,399
Speaker 2: for themselves, how to fight for themselves, how to stand

720
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:13,719
Speaker 2: up for themselves, you don't have to wait around for

721
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 2: Martin a once in a you know, handful of generations

722
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,279
Speaker 2: person like Martin Luther King Junior to come along and

723
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:23,319
Speaker 2: lead the way. The people can lead the way themselves.

724
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 2: And that was one of the things that they were

725
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 2: doing with the Freedom Schools, not just trying to come

726
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 2: up with the next leaders they needed leaders, sure, but

727
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 2: also to make everybody who came to the Freedom School

728
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 2: like aware and ready for action.

729
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: So one of the sad legacies was, you know, we

730
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:42,359
Speaker 1: said at the beginning that what they wanted to do

731
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: was one of their big goals was to seat the

732
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:49,240
Speaker 1: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at that sixty four convention in August,

733
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 1: and they won a public hearing which was a big

734
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: win in and of itself with the DNC committee that

735
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:59,360
Speaker 1: was broadcast on live TV. The widow of Michael Schwerner

736
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: showed up talk, doctor Martin Luther King Junior showed up

737
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: to talk. And the last one and this is just

738
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 1: very sad and shameful. The last speaker and they said

739
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:14,400
Speaker 1: Dave describes her as the most dangerous to that democratic

740
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 1: establishment was a former sharecropper named Fanny lou Hamer.

741
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 2: Did you see her testimony? Yeah, she was as brave

742
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 2: as they come.

743
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:24,760
Speaker 1: She was as brave as they come, but her brave

744
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:29,840
Speaker 1: and pissed. Yeah. But her testimony was interrupted on national

745
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 1: TV by President Lyndon Johnson. He called an impromptu press

746
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: conference in the middle of her testimony. So all the

747
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: TV breaks away, of course, because the president has a

748
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,879
Speaker 1: press conference they need to get to, and everyone was thinking,

749
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: all right, this is big news. He's going to announce

750
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 1: his VP pick for the sixty four election or something

751
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 1: like that, and he basically got on TV and sort

752
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: of ad libbed had Today is the nine month anniversary

753
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: of the assassination of JFK, and black people all around

754
00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 1: the country and white liberal progressives are going, what's a

755
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:01,759
Speaker 1: nine month in her? Like? Are you kidding me?

756
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 2: Not just liberals and civil rights activists, but the news

757
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 2: too saw right through. Oh and it actually backfired because

758
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 2: Johnson interrupting Fanny lou Hamer became news itself, and so

759
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 2: Fanny lou Hamer's testimony stayed on the news for days afterward,

760
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 2: got way more exposure because of Johnson's clumsy, ham fisted attempt.

761
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 2: And the reason why her testimony and the idea of

762
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 2: a Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party was a it was a

763
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 2: threat to the Democrats was because if you got rid

764
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,280
Speaker 2: of the Dixiecrats, if you forced integration on the South,

765
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 2: you were going to lose the solid South. The South

766
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:47,320
Speaker 2: had always voted Democrats because they hated the Republicans, because

767
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 2: the Republicans were the party of Lincoln, who forced reconstruction

768
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 2: on them. So reconstruction comes along and all of the

769
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 2: Southerners went Democrat and they formed the Dixiecrats right well.

770
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 2: When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Amendment in nineteen sixty,

771
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 2: he said to an aid, we just handed the South

772
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:08,399
Speaker 2: to the Republicans for a very long time. And it's

773
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 2: still the case still today. You are hard pressed to

774
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 2: find a county in the South that's blue. They're all red.

775
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well that's not quite true, but.

776
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 2: No, it's one hundred percent. But I mean, okay, let

777
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 2: me put it this way.

778
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:23,479
Speaker 1: Atlanta is as blue as blue gets.

779
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:25,879
Speaker 2: But how many Atlanta's are there in the South.

780
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 1: No, that's I'm saying, you know, like anywhere else the

781
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 1: urban centers, sure, or where the blues are, but.

782
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,880
Speaker 2: I mean like the north, the northern and southern suburbs,

783
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 2: they're all red.

784
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 1: Yeah.

785
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 2: I mean, Atlanta's like a little island of blue and

786
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 2: the thing are red.

787
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:40,800
Speaker 1: Yeah.

788
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 2: It's just weird to think that that's the legacy of

789
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 2: this this.

790
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 1: Time still yeah. Yeah. So some of these students ended

791
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: up to go on and do great, great things, I think,

792
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: dare I say many of them went on to do

793
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 1: great things on a smaller scale, but some were sort

794
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: of known nationally and were pioneers in the black community.

795
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: One man, Eddie James Carthan, he was the first black

796
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: mayor in the Mississippi Delta, a very very big deal.

797
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: He was elected mayor at the age of twenty eight.

798
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 2: Which I mean back then though twenty eight was like

799
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 2: fifty today. Really sure, you know, aging's really regressed since then.

800
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: And we talked earlier about the fact that these schools continue.

801
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 1: They only operated in nineteen sixty four, but a few

802
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,799
Speaker 1: of them were transformed into Freedom Centers and they were

803
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 1: meeting places for the Mississippi Student Union. They were community

804
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:42,959
Speaker 1: meeting places, educational resources. Kindergartens would go there during the day,

805
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 1: they would have adult classes at night. And in the

806
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties is when the Children's Defense Fund created its

807
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:52,720
Speaker 1: own version of the Freedom Schools. All those years later

808
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 1: and they now operate in eighty seven cities across twenty

809
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: eight states, with their main focus being literacy.

810
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 2: It's pretty great.

811
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 1: But they still honor their African heritage because the school

812
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: day begins with a Harambi, traditional African welcoming celebration with

813
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 1: songs and chants.

814
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 2: That goes a little something like go on over to

815
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:17,719
Speaker 2: the fridge. Have you noticed like it's kind of transformed

816
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 2: into singing. It was talking before you're ditching your lou

817
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 2: read this, I guess so of outgrowing them. Well, if

818
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 2: you want to know more about freedom schools, there's a

819
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 2: lot of it archived out there on the internet, and

820
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 2: you could do a lot worse than starting out at

821
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 2: the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's digital archives. They've got a

822
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 2: lot of cool stuff on there. It's just really really

823
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 2: well done, nice short, punchy articles that link to the

824
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 2: next thing and the next thing and just make you

825
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 2: want to keep reading. Well, since I said Student Nonviolent

826
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,399
Speaker 2: Coordinating Committee, it's time for a listener man.

827
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: So this was the This is the gentleman who wrote in.

828
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: We had a few people that wrote in trying to

829
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 1: explain our confusion on do process.

830
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 2: Oh is this the guy? I was like?

831
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 1: Which one was that in? That was in?

832
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:09,280
Speaker 2: It was in Perophilius paraphilius as we were talking about

833
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,879
Speaker 2: like people going to prison for gay sex in their

834
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 2: own home right consenting in Texas in the twenty first century.

835
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 1: And this is from Keith from Philadelphia, not a calm

836
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 1: law professor. Guys just a law student, but I thought

837
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 1: it could help clear this up. In the Lawrence v.

838
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: Texas due Process point, due process is essentially broken up

839
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: into two prongs procedural procedural.

840
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 2: That's a good three year olds.

841
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 1: Procedural and substantive. Did I say that right? Sub Procedural

842
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,240
Speaker 1: due process is exactly what Josh was talking about. Provides

843
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 1: you notice an opportunity to be heard before rights are

844
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 1: taken away from you. Substantive due process is what the

845
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 1: court was referring to, and Lawrence the concept is somewhat complicated,

846
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: but simply stated, Substantive due process means certain rights that

847
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: are so fundamental that no amount of process or procedure

848
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 1: could ever legitimately deprive you of them. In other words,

849
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 1: consenting adults have such a fundamental right to privacy behind

850
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 1: closed doors that to punish them for having consensual sex

851
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: will violate their due process rights, no matter how much

852
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: procedure they are afforded.

853
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 2: Got it?

854
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:24,279
Speaker 1: Yea? That is as clear as bell guys here, as.

855
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 2: Belle future law professor, I'm.

856
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: Losing it here. Thank you Keith from Philly.

857
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 2: Thank you Keith. That was a I mean, I emailed

858
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 2: them immediately. It's like a lot of people have written

859
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 2: and thanks to everybody wrote in and get wrote a shot.

860
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 2: But I emailed them back and was like, Keith, this

861
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 2: is the first one I've fully gotten.

862
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:44,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, Keith, and I think if you stroll on over

863
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: to your refrigerator you will find a frozen snicker bar

864
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: waiting on you. Yeah, because we snuck into your home

865
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:50,520
Speaker 1: in the middle of the.

866
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,000
Speaker 2: Night, where as Chuck would say, a floes in one.

867
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 2: If you want to get in touch of this, like

868
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:56,799
Speaker 2: Keith did, you can go on to stuff you Should

869
00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 2: Know dot com and check out our social links, or

870
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 2: you can send us a good old fast email, wrap

871
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 2: it up, spank it on the bottom, maybe send it

872
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 2: along with the frozen stickerbar to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio

873
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 2: dot com.

874
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

875
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.