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Children see race. We want to learn more about what that means. Hear parents, scholars, illustrators, artists, and more explore how race impacted them as a child and how it affects their lives today. In My Skin is a production of P.R.I.D.E. -- Positive Racial Identity in Early Education -- a University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development program.
Welcome back to part two of the in my skin podcast featuring the amazing Tom and Nika house. We have more about her journey and deep love and passion as a community educator and advocate the freedom schools way and why the work of the pride program is so important. Tune in. So in hearing you speak about your experience with freedom schools and with servant leaders and side coordinators and the children and the parents and everything every all the elements of this dynamic program. I heard joy. I heard the importance and presence of energy. I heard you know cultural relevance. I heard instilling a sense of racial pride and of course literacy. So if you can explain or distill down kind of if it's you know a few points or five points about what do you consider to be the freedom schools way. Okay before I forget. Yeah. Women's her story. Give a shout out to Dr. Jean Middleton Harrison who became the national director following Dr. Joan Parrott and she's very excited. We stay in contact and she said this summer they're looking forward to having freedom schools in Jackson Mississippi.
So I'm excited to you know learn more about that. But the freedom schools way number one is to believe in the children and it's kind of hard to say what is the freedom schools way. I think if you would ask each person you might get like a different answer but one is to believe in the children and it's hard you can't force anyone to love our children but respect our children and care about our children. One scholar has said to me once we had to go by the rules of Lincoln School when we were in partnership with him we hit it on site and he got a little scuffle in the the courtyard. The freedom schools way is we don't suspend our scholars. You know a part of the freedom school way also is conflict resolution and that's the things that you know our
site coordinator project director particularly site coordinator and servant leaders are taught about conflict resolution because that is a part of the daily practice as well as cooperative group activities is a part of the daily practice it's part of the IRC and so we're in the office
and I think Lincoln wanted to like suspending for a day or whatever and I'm looking like this is not the freedom school way and he looked at me he said but Miss House freedom schools is about giving us a second chance. What can I say this scholars are learning the freedom school way and I'm looking at the staff and saying like we can work this out and still with this conflict resolution because the scholars they weren't really mad at each other it was nothing like they like pushed each other whatever and so sometimes it's like those strict measures that systems have even though you know I respect Dr. Holly Holly and she did things a lot of differently than other schools had done but when he looked at me and said that I said we're reaching this scholar you know to have high expectations for our scholars is the freedom school way working through and we know we come through a lot of conflict either in our in our homes we have conflicts in our homes we have conflicts in our communities but what is the freedom school way of dealing with that we talk it out we work it out and the scholars learned that so it was times that the servant leaders could step back and allow the scholars to handle the situation so that's a part of the freedom school way the freedom school way also is for them to help them see the greatness in themselves or even goals that they have another part of the freedom school programming is social action
and so every year on a particular date in July we have social action and so if this to get
the adults registered to vote encouraging the vote dealing with health care and nutrition or whatever and so the servant leaders are teaching the scholars about that the scholars will take on we we write up our phone script they will call senators representatives they would get on the phone and said hello my name is so and so i'm calling from the kenzie link in freedom school or i'm calling from the kenzie face on freedom school and we are concerned about and they know and so sometimes you to get volumes of calls listen okay yeah yeah yeah we have it and so we tell our scholars ask them to repeat what you said to make sure they are listening so that is showing them that you can make a difference in your community and these are ways that you can go about doing that we've had demonstrations freedom school way the one oh in the one
we would also have a finale every year there's a finale and i remember when our Trayvon Martin was taken and the one group and one thing we did differently at our site each group and this is kind of like but i'm trying to share with them in terms of the importance of culture would have an african name or something with an african meaning and what they did about Trayvon Martin and our mistake is we didn't record it i think when the parents didn't i couldn't get in touch with the parent to get it but it was absolutely phenomenal and the one demonstration dealing with hunger and now that we see that the just in the last couple of days that the extra money and snap has been taken back and we know the importance that it is for some families but this particular in the channel two came picked one of the scholars out no rehearsal this sister was sensational they asked her question her body language she stood erect she looked at um the interviewer right in the eye and told him everything about what the national day of social action was about
i was flew i was just so overwhelmed with pride and then afterwards i had to ask where because she was going to malign school um you know after you know after freedom school and i contacted the school said look this child has to be nurtured she has a lot to offer and all that fell through you know what was the interest in one student or whatever but um those high expectations to listen and guide uh to listen to our scholars i remember one scholar i would go around in the building and sometimes i would check on the classroom i'd go upstairs see the scholar in the hallway uh scholar why are you in the hallway i'm protesting i said what are you protesting and this was uh this week was a book about um i think the day gogo went to vote and it was dealing with nelson andella wanted to and she said well we don't i said what are you protesting so she broke down a thing she was she said they needed more time for this and she said some other things i said have you discussed it with your servant leader she said no i said so why aren't you speaking up for yourself so we decided that um she would talk to her servant leader i said child get back in that room so she got back in the room and later she discussed it you know with the servant leader she organized the the scholars in the group and said this is what we need to say to the servant leader so those are things that they learned through freedom school and they can take on and some of them took it on to you know further on in in school that they knew how to organize in school and how far they went i don't know
but we do need the parents of assos can we have freedom school year round yeah you know um but uh that's that's another thing yeah but there are different elements of the freedom school thing and i really appreciate what you shared um one of the first things you said in that freedom school's way when you were talking about um the scholar who was about to be uh suspended for a day and how he said you know basically that's not the freedom school's way and i i love that you brought that up because you know we're always modeling for our children they're always watching us and they're always watching to see if we're practicing the values that we say that we espouse like are we living the values that are coming out of our mouths you know and our children will hold us accountable they will call us on that and you know what but all of us are not doing that yeah um and but children are a reflection of us that's right hold that mirror what are they reflecting and they talk about children who are acting out of it what are they reflecting they're reflecting it to be in the home but certainly it's out in the community and the larger community and now that you have social media you know children are reflecting that you know so uh my thing is don't please don't give up on our children don't give up on them you know and we collectively not as like small groups here they're doing these great things um but collectively what message are we sending to our children what kind of music you're uh driving and you're playing music in a car or they could hear your music on your phone what kind of music are they listening to what are they talking about what kind of images are we giving them what kind of languages are they picking up from us and they think it is okay and a lot of times we don't think about that we walk through the community what kind of languages are they hearing what kind of models are they seeing in the community we are people in the community doing some great things wonderful things but it's not enough of us it's not enough people doing it and it's things that we can do in our homes to start to make you know a difference with that you know and what if it would if um and now the schools are opening up and i know it's like very very different but what if five parents
just walked up to the school even stood in front of the school and giving messages to our children if they were going to stores in our community and say um i expect you to do good i believe in you you're smart you're bright you know going to the library what messages are they hearing um i know a group of kids that hang out at the hill library you know and they have some some good things going on there um but and in the summertime what kind of jobs are they getting what kind of jobs are they had throughout the year um i remember we organized what some people organized said um hidden figures and students from female students from rasheer maliance and it might have been one other school and a young brother who has his own non-profit and was time to leave and he said queens the whole room got quiet these young sisters stood up and the way they left out so he's doing some work with them said queens and the other schools couldn't believe it but i could because it's something that's pouring into them and hopefully what he and that organization is pointing to them they are pouring into others and so the same way um with the organizing around freedom schools and i would say some groups trying to resurrect freedom schools across the country it's a brookers university uh some of you google them and talk about freedom school and i was on a webinar and it was a a minister on from york pa and this was around uh the assassination of george floyd right after that and it was you know black lives matter and everything was going on and he said it could have been associated with this but he got a million dollars for freedom school one million dollars york is a small town and let me shut up i think it was york but um but he was doing it differently so he had year round how he was organizing the youth to organize other youth you know and um so uh now you know since we're kind of hopefully somewhat past covet more freedom schools are opening up for the summer but i haven't been affiliated with the national office in a number of years so i know um there's a very active freedom schools in philly and philly's always been like politically and culturally conscious you know for you know it's there and so it was the one sister who was affiliated with the cdf freedom schools and they broke away from cdf and started their own and they've been going on point so it's good but one of the things i want to say too in terms of relationships mmm mmm mary ryan edelman was able to build relationships and um i don't think it was with this particular person but with others about this one foundation it connected with pride but um the superintendent and philly some years ago before he left he built in there had to be monies for 10 years for freedom schools that's what i'm talking about it was built in the budget they have freedom schools for 10 years yeah so you know we had our latino sites with our african american sites i don't know if there's any other um ethnic groups but for 10 years they had freedom schools yeah yeah i mean that's so important that's what i'm talking about in terms of long-term investments yeah really because you know i mean i can just go off on my own tangent about just you know and it's other foundation year and yeah you know if we have layers and layers of oppression and exploitation right and we have developed these certain mindsets um and lack of opportunities one or two year grants are not going to get it that's right it's just not going to happen and so at a minimum for me at a minimum it should be 10 years yeah but we need things like for 50 years for real at a minimum yeah you know uh to to address some of these things so um don't give up on our on our children um don't give up on our our families you know they could be loud wild you know one of my parents one time i'm walking up center avenue
one of her parents and she just came up and hugged me to this they don't understand why she did that she just wrapped her arms around me i wrapped my arms back around her like i didn't ask her why she did it you know and she looked at me she said how you doing and and then we parted ways yeah that's it i mean you never know what kind of effects you'll have on people and or when you plant those seeds you know working with young people and parents and community you don't know how they're gonna grow that's right but they're gonna remember you plant those seeds that's so important i like to use plant those seeds you never know how it's going to grow but when you plant those seeds it's like a garden you plant seeds that garden has to be fertilized it needs to sun it needs water sometimes there's weeds and you need to pick those weeds uh and some people who have my mother was very very good with plants and she would talk to people used to bring plants that look like um like they were dead my mother would be able to bring those things but i'm like what in the world um she just had that touch you know so um like you plant those garden you know when we had that garden and it's not just for our children it has to be for our families you know there are things that we can do at home that we need to tell our children every day i love you every day hug them our children need that and guess what parents need that too
and i believe in you you know uh you send that message out to our children before they leave that door i love you and the expectations you have for them they are representing the family how are you going to represent the family you know so and there's things we can can turn around i didn't always i've made a lot of mistakes i mean a lot of mistakes in my life and i still make mistakes you know and i still think i'm learning that i'm growing you know and i tell folks don't give up on me please don't yeah i'm trying yeah never that oh wow um well i got uh
two more questions for you um we so you are um one of our trusted in terms of the prior program um you're one of our trusted advisory committee members you've been i believe with us since the beginning since we first started this work and um you know always been an enthusiastic advocate always sending us information and articles to read because we're still learning ourselves right always learning um so i wanted to know if you see any similarities between the work of the pride program right so you know just thinking about our components we have our arts component through our pop-up mini art festivals and now we have artists residencies and family art time that was that was virtual due to the pandemic we've got a professional development we've got evaluation and research we have our parent caregiver strategy through um our parent village as well um and i'm like evaluation research our parent workshop oh and then we have um um our speaker series events right where we strive we strive to educate the community on the intersection between race and early childhood and bringing in you know local and national and unsung at times experts um in this field um so having you know been around for a while you've been with us for a while um what are some connections or similarities that you've seen between freedom schools and the pride programs work okay the country gonna come out of me child let me tell you bring it out bring it out country coming out of me um
there are i'm telling you if y'all if the listening audience if you've ever been to one of the pop-ups oh my word it's times i've gone to the pop-ups nobody knew who i was i would sit back and just observe and other times i would walk around and talk with folk but and you all were so busy working i don't think it's some things that you all might not have seen um but the
things that i saw that came across the children's faces
they were introduced to something so different and the culture was so rich and i see people did different tables doing different activities and the children would run and they would go back to the adult that they were with and say look look look and the adult was oh yeah that's nice but guess what it's not just the activity that the children did the adults want to do the activity too and they enjoyed it and they said how different it was um how much they appreciated
in terms of the books uh the richness of those children is so important for them to see images of themselves and the greatness of themselves so i see the similar similarity of that uh the importance of literacy but also the importance of relationships and the value that you have on families um i said and i think was the one i went to and the different ranges of family people that were there you know and sometimes you can go to meetings and the way a person talks they look down upon um whether it's their dialect or how they're dressed because they're not dressed the way you think they should be dressed you know thinking you're better than somebody else none of that was there none of that was there um when we had our parent powers uh sometimes uh uh our parents were coming straight from work because we would make calls to them we would have our scholars saying look mommy we want you to be there you know or so and so could come you know big brother could come or whatever and um so our families were valued um but i do remember one one time uh seven leaders was this was before things were set up and she said after all we are college students i was fuming inside but i also knew i had to to teach her but the look on uh the parents face you know but i tried to you know go in and with the parent and um work through that i talked about my mother's my mother was a domestic worker and that was times when you didn't use mops and these white folks floors you got down on your hands and knees and scrubbed their floors you know you know um so i started asking her things that she had that she can share with me you know that i want to learn so she lit up you know and so we don't always expect you know we have families that uh may not have graduated from high school or they may have graduated they might have gone into college they might not have gone into college but pride accepts the families pride believes in the children pride has a commitment so it's not just and i'm not just saying this because i'm on the viral i'm really because i because i wouldn't do that um but there is a i want to hit my hands up talk with my hands sometimes but um this commitment say like we got you children we got you we care we got you and i might and i know i'm not saying it right and that's okay country coming out of me but just say i have you i have you and that's so important so for a child to look up and smile at you that says you're doing something right um so that commitment that embracing families who they are where they are and where they're at i meet you where you're at um and wanting it to grow i'm so proud that pride has moved into philly um haven't talked to anybody in philly about that yet so those are some of the the similarities i see i think i've taken some notes and some of the the similarities but um exuding excitement and with them pop-ups i'm telling and i'm going to look over here at isis but i i mess up talking anything but to see how hard the people are working at these tables and the staff who are raggedy tired and they keep pushing and they keep pushing and even though the pandemic has shut down their physical together because we as a people we do need to need that we need to be among people but pride said
ain't gonna let that stop us we gotta do something you make a way out of no way you gave me some lemon i'm gonna give you some good lemonade um and so it's times that like during the pandemic one of the things that that has become valuable to me is the webinars and i've been able to participate on that and a couple of times i've been able to talk and then just put tap you know type in i said oh yeah so you want to talk about early childhood and what needs for for black children this is group you need to know about pride and i'll type it in and hoping i'm doing pride justice and i said and if you want to get in contact with them you know so uh just trying to spread the word of pride um and even in uh pittsburgh because there's still a lot of people who don't know about it they should know about it and it be it would be of value um and growth for our children and our families and i don't know if it's foundation folks listening or not and maybe i'm not speaking the way they would expect a person to speak um but pride needs resources and should not have to worry about the doors closing it's about service to our children and families and sometimes folks forget about that or it doesn't matter or
they might see how our children are acting out and it's just constant blame on them
but are we looking in the mirror what are we doing for our children what have we done for them um do we believe in enough to go and get them and to include them in whatever we're trying to do
or to ask them what is that you need what is it that you want you know um i was thinking this morning in preparation we paid our servant leaders starting out very well it's what now some works are striving for minimum i mean not minimum wage um to increase the well living wage at one point we were paying them 15 an hour this was years ago
well that was just a beautiful you know connection that you made with pride i really appreciate that just couldn't have said it any better yes you can no no no no no no i'm surprised i'm not really surprised i agree to this because i'm more like a background person and that is that um if i get a chance to have my freedom school i know you just you just light up talking about freedom school has a love me some freedom skills the power of parents you know you just you know the energy is there you know sometimes you gotta be you know re-inspired reinvigorated so you would just listen sitting here listening talking to you and you know listening to your story and your perspective sometimes you just need to remind like yeah we are doing really dope things i've had people tell me these parents don't care they don't care they just lump everybody together i bet you a nickel to a donut if somebody was jumping on their parents child you think they're gonna stand there right and you tell me parents don't care right right right if anything that's what we do you know we may not always be able to be everywhere that folks want us to be at the exact time that we need to be there but you can't say that we don't care you know everybody's doing the best that they can with what they got this one parent had told me i ran into her but i knew when she was a child and had an opportunity um what was that working at this time oh at hill house and uh mr henry called me in the office i'm so busy dealing i think it was from camp we had an overnight at camp and i'm trying to get things together and he wanted me to come up to his office and like man and so he asked me said tom nick have you ever flown before and i said yes and then back my mind and you get back to my kids um and what happened relationship jim henry was very good at building relationships it's a part about relationships someone who worked for airlines every year um they would pick a community to give to whatever and so this person had uh had their child in it uh hill house child care many years ago whatever and so he asked me um so long story short the woman who worked for the airlines had talked to them about taking a group of children to disney world so i was able to take 10 children from the hill
to disney world and picked a chaperone to go with me and it was experience of a lifetime for these young people and the one young mother had young because she was a student and i think she was in she was in elementary school and now she's a parent but ran into one day she was telling me her and her sister are very very close and it's times that she couldn't make it to a school event but her sister would go and vice versa so that's one way of you know the family acting together i met another woman she was saying it's times you know uh like when they had um um it was an open house she would get her family together and she said i can't make it all the time and she would bring the crew in she said this is my family this is such and such and such and such and they were here on behalf of you know so it got real creative with that you know so sometimes we think we can't do things but we find a way to do it and a lot of times our parents just don't know it was times i didn't know what to do and i was still active you know i was active in my children but it's a lot of things i didn't know and every time there was an education workshop or something i'd try to go to it and um well i guess to see why i knew it boy i'd probably be in jail but i would leave my kids and i would go but i was in this village just ree roberts village that looked out for the children you know so i could go and dr lou vinson he always put him he said we need the knowledge base our families don't have the knowledge base so what a lot of white families have and i knew with my inferior education i meant to say earlier when my mother worked in mount mount lebanon and the family talks that the people she worked for and i remember her coming home talking about those children's education in mount lebanon i knew i was an inferior sister i knew i was and that did something to me on a psychological level i knew i wasn't getting what they were getting you know and that kind of that that stuck with me you know and so how do we
make it great for our children not just average you have to make it great and i know some of the foundations are stepping up they need to step up more and i i believe that i i really do believe that um so pride is doing this great work there are other organizations doing great work and
it's always you know and sometimes people have to write proposals according to the guidelines that they set rather than the guidelines we know what's good for our people you know and pride puts that culture out there you know that culture is important if culture is not important and it's not value to us look at sometimes we wear our hair our clothes our music
our language sometimes it's a coded language that young people have a coded language sometimes adults don't understand a word they don't know what's going on you know so um and that's part of that that cultural creativity you know um and probably a lot of us don't you know families don't cook as much as you know grandma did big mama did or whatever but those recipes and then there are recipes for families too recipes about loving and supporting um and leaning on each other and so are we saying that if our organizations are good enough and valuable enough how do we show it but sometimes folk don't know how to show it and so we have to share that knowledge yes it's a lot with that knowledge base well you're leading us right into my my last question and you've already touched on some things
but i wanted to know if you had any advice tips or strategies for parents or educators or community members artists to help develop positive racial identity within our children and kind of continue the legacy of freedom schools in ways that are accessible to them so just how you talked about there was an example when you said like you know if five parents could show up at a school you know and greet our children in the morning right that doesn't that's not a program that's a practice right that doesn't really cost anything right so what do you feel are some tips and strategies to help continue to pour into and instill pride within our children and to kind of continue the freedom school's legacies and what in legacy in ways that are accessible to them whether it's a program or not whether it's an in-home practice or something like that so my brain is work as good as yours so i might need you to break that down a little more for me but because it was a lot in that question but one i love me brought up about the artists the arts oh i love the arts and i remember when i remember angel i yeah and that's my old rap name i remember that and listening and growing from that and here's a country coming out me again don't you know our young folk do that yeah and they can do that in elementary school so if they want to write a rap for pride so you had those sessions can you write a rap can you write a poem so we need our artists to share their creativity but we also need to appreciate that creativity too and i think a lot of times in our communities we expect people to volunteer all the time and volunteering is very important but to value the arts so what if a artist or artist were commissioned to do a mural maybe not a mural but uh because i think that's like overworked um but a collage a pride collage other families and a pride staff do the staff is working um or do a writing for pride what so arts i think is very important as many layers of of art and i think that's important um and i need you tell me again what else you said arts and what else you with educators parents and caregivers anybody that has you know works with or loves on children what can they do to help instill pride within them to make them feel good about themselves and being black we all have to be open to learning and growing to continue that we don't know enough and so if folk can share resources of where kind of almost like a where to turn take our children to different cultural events i think our homes need to have decor some folks will call decorations in our homes um of that reflect the goodness of us and even have pictures of
the grandparents family photos things that the children have done in school their works hanging around the house pouring refrigerator or whatever but we need to see culture all around us i think that's important um educators i think now so much is being asked of them i think too much is being asked of them they are overwhelmed um overworked and in some places underpaid um and sometimes we forget they have children too that they have to go home to they work all day go home but i think our families what we could when i worked at prospect um some things i did uh with the staff i would always put a message in their mail slot saying something positive and that way um some of the staff opened up to me they would come to me um and at one point um one person uh and i say this for a particular reason my office was on the first floor so i was engaged with all of the children that were coming in and out the building and the parents that would come and i remember this one mother came up to me i don't know she didn't know who i was she came she said take care of my child and i think she just kind of like for some way she knew i was from the hill but somebody when they start seeing the parents coming to me and they wanted them to come to them that was an issue and they put me up in a little cubby hole but little did they know the place that they put me i was in more contact with the children but i always stayed you know on the floor but um you know where i could where i could see the families coming coming in the building too but we need to let our educators know we appreciate them you know you don't have to go to the store and buy a car you write a card and say i appreciate you with my um my one son who played basketball in high school and his coach was uh they called him frank and when he graduated i got a thank you i used every white space i could front back and in between to thank him this man it's it's times that they would call uh say frank i went to this party and the buses start running he would get a middle night go get him you know and not only did i give him a thank you card i sent his mama a thank you card and say thank you for the son that you raised and what he has given to these boys you know so i think saying thank you is very important um when i communicate we're proud i say i thank you i respect you and i appreciate you you know um but we need to have built relationships with educators and community folk who have always think about a pulse and sometimes with training i would say put your finger on your pulse whether it's on your wrist or the pulse in your neck do we have a pulse on the community um i remember one of the training sessions uh in the early years i did with the servant leaders um took a walk through the community because these are the families that you can be working with getting some money to buy lunch wasn't that much as if this is what our families have to build a meal on go make a meal it was but they had to work through it that's that cooperative group activity they were working when they worked through it so for us to understand that and so for us to try to open our mind and open our heart to understand what folk are going through um to learn and grow but we have to be open to learning and not always be so critical and be open to self uh self-criticism that we can get better um there are things that um in some places uh hands are tied educators as to what they can do but their rooms need to be inviting the whole building uh principal gaffale uh so he can walk in a building and um and dr earl broxton i worked with him on some things uh with prospect and he walked and he said tom nick i see the problem right here walked in the cafeteria saw it immediately was in there 30 seconds and saw what the problem is so let's be open to that and these are some very trying times we have educators who are traumatized
parents who are traumatized our children are traumatized you know um and so how do we work through that foundations again we need help with that you know not saying that they are the answer you know we have some answers we don't have all of them but we need to listen to each other work with each other find out what organizations are doing what don't duplicate it i think about dr taylor who's been in the game for over 50 years the work he's done and the difficulty in trying to get the program through and say look this is a program we know that would work with school system but school systems aren't always open you know um and so sometimes we got to go outside and do it you know i know there are groups that have like saturday academies i don't want to start naming different groups um but i know one that is very effective i have a waiting list
and then things that we can do you know differently you know so if you know we got some mamas out there do some sure never know how to cook you know and one way going fishing to reach our young people they like to eat they like to eat let's give them a home cooked meal you know um when we go down to the farm with freedom schools they fed they fed our mind and oh my word did they feed our body they fed us seriously things change down down the years after you know cutbacks
with financial contributions but um but we need to be creative in like how do we reach parents how we reach our youth um and school systems and other systems that we're all affiliated with in one way or another and i went off the tracks i need you to tell me some other things that you said
and talking about your life experience in general, and then as Freedom Schools director and self-appointed Freedom Schools ambassador.
Thanks again for tuning into another episode of "In My Skin" podcast, where we get real about race and early childhood and talk to folks who are doing the work. We hope you enjoyed learning about Freedom Schools through the eyes, heart, mind, and incredible journey of the formidable Tomahneka Howes. One of my personal sheroes and beloved to so many lives she has touched throughout her life. If you know a local shero, whether it be your mother, your auntie, a community mother, or a favorite teacher, don't forget to give them their flowers for all that they are and all they do in the world.
If you haven't already, don't forget to check out our website, racepride.pit.edu, and find us on Instagram, at the Pride Program underscore PGH, and Facebook at the Pride Program. Until next time, friends.