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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.
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Welcome to the In My Skin podcast, the podcast of the PRIDE Program, which stands for Positive Racial Identity Development and Early Education out of the University of Pittsburgh's Office of Child Development within the School of Education.
The work of the PRIDE Program is to help dismantle the impact of racism in young children's lives by helping them develop a positive racial identity through working with the primary adults in their lives and creating fun, educational, cultural community spaces and events. I am your host of the In My Skin podcast and Director of Engagement of the PRIDE Program, Medina Jackson.
Here on In My Skin, we talk about the knowledge, wisdom, insights, experiences, research, and practices bringing race, early childhood, and black children specifically into clearer focus. For more information about our program and exciting work, make sure to peruse our website, racepride.pitt.edu.
In honor of Women's Herstory Month, we have as our guest a beloved local shero here in Pittsburgh, Ms. Tomonika House. On this episode, we explore the fundamental question of, what does it take to reach, engage, affirm, and teach black children primarily through the lens of freedom schools. The Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools Program has its origins in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964, first developed by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, otherwise known as SNCC. It brought college students from around the country to Mississippi to secure justice and voting rights for black citizens. These early freedom schools aimed at keeping black children and youth safe and giving them rich educational experiences that were not offered in Mississippi's public schools. In a variety of makeshift settings, college student volunteers provided instruction in reading, writing, humanities, mathematics, and science, along with subjects not taught in Mississippi public schools such as black history and constitutional rights.
All of their instruction was tailored to encourage children and youth to become independent thinkers, problem solvers, and agents of change in their own communities.
The Children's Defense Fund opened the first two CDF Freedom School sites in 1995 to address the needs of children who lacked access to high-quality literacy programs during the summer. The CDF Freedom Schools Program today is designed to improve reading, language skills, and interpersonal relationships, strengthen families, connect children to medical and other needed social services, and develop in all participants the skills needed to improve conditions for children and families in their communities.
Now, with over 10,000 scholars served, almost 1,100 program staff trained, and 174 sites across 88 cities and 29 states, the CDF Freedom Schools Program provides summer and after-school enrichment through a research-based and multicultural program model that supports K-12 scholars and their families through five essential components.
High-quality academic and character building enrichment, parent and family engagement, civic engagement and social action, intergenerational servant leadership, development, and nutrition, health, and mental health.
In addition to a conversation with Ms. House about Freedom Schools, in her time with us, she shares the importance of parent power and tied to this, why the work of the Pride Program is and will always be needed.
So, who is Ms. House?
She is a community educator, parent and community mother, advocate, Pride Program Advisory Committee member, former local project director, consultant, and self-proclaimed ambassador for Freedom Schools. It is my hope that you feel the passion and fire of Ms. House, and to quote poet Sonia Sanchez, "Learn your fire, find it, and pass it on."
Ms. Tomonika House, how you doing today? Fantastic, terrific, and great. Yes, all right, all right. Well, we want to start things off with a little treat that Ms. House brought with us, just giving us a little example of the Freedom Schools way. So, I'm going to kick it over to you. First, I want to say thank you very much for inviting me to talk about my life-changing experience with Freedom Schools.
I'd like to start off with something we would say in Freedom Schools. It's like I have a recognition. And usually, it's a call and response, and a group would say, "Recognize," but we don't have a group, so I just want to say I have a recognition.
And I'd like to recognize the Children's Defense Fund, Malik Bankston, who is the former Executive Director of the Kingsley Association, Carl Redwood, who is the former Associate Director of the Kingsley Association,
Dr. Regina Holly, former Principal at Lincoln Elementary School and the Summer Staff, Dr. Russell Patterson, Phazon Principal, Dr. Kyra Henderson, Principal of Wiles School in the Hill District. And all those who have been part-- all that I mentioned have been partners with Freedom Schools.
And I cannot forget, will not forget, the fantastic, terrific, and great Project Directors, Site Coordinators, Servant Leaders, our parents and families, our scholars-- our scholars are our children-- and the Foundation's support.
- Wonderful. Thank you, Ms. Howe. Before we jump deeply into Freedom Schools in general and your experience with Freedom Schools specifically, I want to start with the question that we do with every guest that we have here, and it's called "Lived Experiences," right? So like I mentioned, you are a community educator and mother. You are a youth and parent advocate, right? Always centering community and education since I've known you. So I just want to know what lived experiences led you to this passion, interest, and work from as far back as you can remember. What were the nuggets, the pathway, the journey that led you here? - I think first and foremost was my mother, who was an example for me, a woman who dropped out of high school in 11th grade to care for her ailing mother. But my mother laid a foundation for me in terms of loving children, advocating for children.
She advocated for us in school, so she was my foundation.
In elementary school, I went to an elementary school in the Hildershire called Miller Elementary School, and once a week we'd have library time. And I loved it. We would sit in a circle in a librarian, she would read these stories, but I loved the way she ran. I would just listen intently until one day, one day she read the book "Little Black Sambo."
That was a game changer for me. She had one of my classmates, I remember it was one of the boys, run around in a circle until he was exhausted and just kind of collapsed on the floor. And she thought it was so funny. She sent one of my classmates up to get the gym teacher and she wanted to be reenacted. And so that day I no longer had fondness for her, but I still, she was the one who introduced reading to me. And so that was a game changer for me. So that was my real first taste, I think, of racism, but I loved reading, she introduced that to me. And then in high school,
I came across a book in the library about Mary McLeod Bethune.
That was it, that was a game changer for me. So that's when I knew I had a great interest in education. And I just tried to broaden my knowledge, but I didn't have much guidance in high school, but my mom, still she attended PTA meetings when I was in elementary school. She was a domestic worker. So she got paid day by day. And this was a woman who had to take, it wasn't buses then, it was street cars. She would take two street cars going to work on Mount Lebanon and come home tired. I would see a dragon up the street. She was so tired, but she would take days off to go to PTA meetings or we had school bazaars. So she was an advocate for us in elementary school, did the same thing in high school. She set the tone that she wanted us to do better than what she and her peers were able to do.
But I do remember seeing, now my mom didn't read to us. I don't remember that at all, but I remember the jet magazines and Ebony magazines in our home. And that sparked my interest since I liked to read. So I would look at those, but also I've got an early interest in civil rights too, because then it was a black and white TV and it wasn't remote. You would get up and change the channels, but seeing what was happening in the South in some kind of way that impacted me. And at that time, I know it's hard for folks to believe or understand, one refrigerators, we had like what's called an icebox. So every day you had to get these big chunks of ice and put it in the icebox. And so we would have to go grocery shopping like every day. So whatever was for dinner, you have to go get it that day. And there was a core office, Congress of Racial Equality on Center Avenue. And I would bypass that.
And sometime I would just go in and talk to them or whatever. And so they would give me information about what was going on in terms of our people. And I remember them saying, ask your mom if you can go to, I think it was Alabama, some big national trip. And I think I'm getting off track. So I'll start with that. I'll get off track with that. I mean, I don't wanna get off track, but there was an R in our community for us to do well in school. I remember the number man on the corner and he was like, okay, I want you to do good in school. We get to the crossing guard. Do good in school, always giving us words of encouragement. So that was kind of like a foundation for me. And later I joined in high school, I went to a program called Hill City
on Bedford Avenue in the Hill District. And I worked at a program called Urban Youth Action. So I started learning more then.
And- - I can know you work there. - Yeah, yeah. As a teenager, as a teenager. So the second year that it started, Urban Youth Action, that's when I worked there. And I think I was in charge of the education department, I believe. So, and I did hiring. So that was a good basis for me. But again, my mom, she supported me in everything I did with that. And so I was very proud of what my mother did
with us in school. So, you know, sitting at groundwork.
And later after high school, moved to Homewood. And that's what, before then, it's still my interest in civil rights. But coming from work from Hill City,
there, I must've gotten a flyer in high school, whatever. But at Ebenezer Baptist Church, there was a speaker by the name of Stokely Carmichael.
And I went.
And I left there, leaving out, going down the street. Had to take, then it was a street car back to Homewood. And walked all the way down to Fifth Avenue, and I'm saying, bang, bang, beep, beep, God with black power. So I always said, that sentence is something in me. And so after graduating from high school,
I got involved with an organization called Together Incorporated. So that's what my political consciousness came about. And we opened up a bookstore, Harambe bookstore, on Homewood Avenue. So people from across the city would come and shop at the bookstore. Keep in mind, there was a cultural movement going on. There was a black movement going on, a black power movement going on. So a lot of conscious raising was going on. So I was learning and growing then.
And so I just started learning more and more there, and then involved in those organizations. So that was part of my community aspect. And then I started being directly involved with youth. I kind of like did it on my own. I just remembered 18 years old, becoming an advocate for children. I remember going into the schools. One child in particular, I went on behalf of her parent and had to speak with teachers or whatever. And sometimes the teachers and principals were open to it, but I was a different person then. So I like pushed my way in and advocated.
The best that I could.
We organized a student walkout.
That was, I had actually forgotten about that going back, but that was another thing, organizing and working with students and met a lot of students from Westinghouse High School and those, some of them became leaders. Later, I became involved in the Congress of African People and I moved back to the Hill.
But for Women's Hearst Story Month, March, I have to give a shout out of recognition, respect and appreciation to the moms, the grandmoms, the aunties, the community moms, and women who led by example for children, not just their children that they birthed, but children of the community. And certainly my mother was that example for me as being a mother of the community. So a shout out to them. And so my education in turns, my involvement in advocacy with education continued. And later on being involved in Congress of African People, I remember my sister was initiated and we organized what we call Liberation School. And it started out of our apartment on Frankstown Avenue in Homewood.
And talk about the community response we would have on Saturday, every Saturday,
parents were involved, everything was volunteer, food, everything. But we had some kind of connection to the University of Pittsburgh. And I remember Curtis Porter was one of those persons. I don't remember the other people involved, but we were able to have buses and we took children from, we picked up children all across the city. The furthest I can remember was St. Clair Village. We'd have a bus load coming from St. Clair. And so Liberation School grew so large, we had to move it outside of our apartment. And so we had different places in the community. Never had to pay rent anywhere.
Any supplies that we needed, the family supplied it, some of the brothers on the street who were doing things they might not have any business doing, would make donations. And so that went on for a couple of years having Liberation School in Homewood. And then with CAP,
we had African Free School at a community center on the hill. So those were kind of like my foundations. And then later, after those programs fizzled out and I got married, had children, and then I became advocating on behalf of my children.
In elementary school, my children went to the second best elementary school in the city for black children. And that was Madison Elementary.
And led by example, what my mother did, got involved with the schools. And Vivian Williams, shout out women's her story mom, fantastic principal.
And so their experience at Madison was really good.
But then it came time for them to go to middle school. And at that time where I lived at, they would have had to have gone to, they had to go to Prospect Middle School, one of the most racist schools in the city.
And I remember that's when I met Barbara Sizemore.
Shout out women's her story mom, Dr. Barbara A. Sizemore, scholar, warrior, activist. And so Barbara had a big impact on my life as well. And she, Barbara would go across the country doing studies of high performing African-American schools with African-American children were performing on a high level. And so the schools in Pittsburgh was van number one in Madison.
And so Barbara came, she said, Tomahneke, what school do children go into? And I told her, she said, we need to try to get them to go to another school because she recognized the leadership of one of my sons. And she was very concerned about them destroying his leadership abilities. And I raised my kids to feel good about who they are and to stand up for themselves.
So I couldn't get them to go to another school. So I became very involved with Prospect, going back and forth to the school, dealing with the racism.
And I think I was searching for a job at that point. And then I ran across a woman, Marshall Snowden. And so I went in the,
then you all won't understand, they were, they called telephone books.
So I'm looking for educate, you know, programs dealing with education. I remember telephone books. Okay.
And so I came across one with Allegheny Conference and met Marshall Snowden. I was telling her what was going on. And so in discussion, she said, I like to hire you. And I'm like, really? And so I was hired to organize parents in the Hill. And I remember going back and forth to Prospect,
even prior to that, dealing with the teachers, just the racism that was there. And the black kids coming from the Hill, it was a culture shock because my kids came from an all black school and then going to integrated school was very different. And there was Confederate flag
that flew proudly throughout, you know, at this one house. And I don't think our kids realized what it was. I knew what it was. And so some of the actions from the staff there was just horrendous. And then there was a principal, they selected Bob Pipkin to be the principal. So trying to get things coordinated there to work out for our youth. And then my other responsibility, not only organizing parents, and that's one of the hardest tasks to do is organizing and organizing parents. And if we talk about freedom school, the model, the blueprint is SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, when they hear freedom summer. So that is the blueprint. But so I had an afterschool program for middle school children.
I loved working with children period.
And we got a space inside of Hill House and at no charge, Jim Henry then was the director of Hill House and Carl Redwood was the assistant director.
And I guess he saw the work I was doing with the afterschool program. And so when I left Prospect, they wanted me to stay on, but there were changes going on. And I said, what needed to happen? And I relinquished that job
because they wanted me to come on full time with the school district. And I knew I would battle with the school district because I was always going back and forth with the school district. And I said, no, you need to have a parent who has children in the school to become the director, the leader, the organizer.
Because my kids had left Prospect. And I said, you need to have a parent. And I just backed away. And I don't think they ever hired a parent. I think that was a mistake that they made.
They were really trying to make some serious changes there. And Carl Redwood asked me to coordinate a program at Hill House to start an afterschool program there. And that was K to five, which I did. And that model that we used there for the afterschool program summer camp was based on a program Dr. J'mon Taylor had led,
Values for Life.
And I tell anybody, check out Dr. J'mon Taylor at the Center for Family Excellence. If we talk about the studies that they have done about how far behind black children are, we think COVID that our children are two years behind? No, Dr. Taylor, we are decades behind. It would take decades to catch up. And so one thing I love what they did at that time, the program was called Right Start.
And what a lot of people don't do when they put together organizations or do grant writing for programs, they negate the people. They say, I think I know what is good for the people. So I put this together and I know for a fact that what some people do to get money, they will use certain zip codes and they'll get funded. But what they did under the leadership of Dr. J'mon Taylor is they went to the people and asked them, what is it that you want for your children?
They did door to door knocking and asked them, what is it that you want for your children? And that's how the Values for Life model came about.
So the Head Start at Hill House that used Values for Life. So, Carl, instead of us just trying to do something different, just use this. And what I did, I just modified it. And to this day, I have some of the children I have then who are parents now, Ms. House, those values, how can I use them with my children or the one young woman reached out to me, she has a childcare center. Well, two, the one mom had, I had her son in the afterschool program in camp and her other son worked with us at summer camp. And she has one of the best daycare centers in the city, that she reached out to me about the Values for Life, how she could use a model there. And another young woman I had as a student in the program, she now has a childcare center, she wants to use Values for Life. But I told my, I think probably the best thing, so not to avoid copyright kind of things, is to contact Dr. Taylor, but it's a very good program. And I probably went on and on more than I should have. - Well, I think it's so, you know, at first it's no problem because first of all, I mean, you're someone that is fairly well known amongst I'd say across community, educational space, but I don't know if everyone knows all that about you or your full story and just like the pieces and the nuggets and some of the things that you were saying about
even the things that your mother did and how much she was an influence on you, that's something that I connected with as well. My mother's my primary influence. She had the jet magazines and the Ebony magazines laying around, just like your mother did. So it wasn't that she always sat me down and told me these things, but she made things available in the environment that I had access to that I would just pick up and be curious about and then I would learn things from there. You know, your after school experience and parent advocacy and I just love that your experiences are very place-based. They're very much so rooted in the Hill District, rooted in Homewood.
National, international influences like Stokely Carmichael coming and being inspired and influenced by that, but your story is very much so a Pittsburgh story, a Hill District story, a Homewood story, all these local connections. So I think it was very important for everybody to hear that. - Can I back up something? Because it's something I forgot. - That's fine. - Very important to say about Dr. Barbara Sizemore, who was professor here on Pitt's campus.
- What am I she wrote to? - Yes indeed, because if her students would show up her classroom, she would go to their dorm.
Your mama didn't send you to school to cut class. And you know, she was just, I mean, she was so community rooted, but with Barbara's studies across the country and then looking at Pittsburgh, how bad things were for our children here.
And so she pulled together a number of people. I think the first time we met it was like a hundred folks and it was only a few parents there. I remember distinctly Wanda Henderson. That's when I met her.
But Barbara pulled this organization again. We would meet on Pitt's campus, but she would say, okay, now what are we gonna call this organization? And we couldn't think of one in Barbara just came. She said, okay, advocates for African-American students in the Pittsburgh public schools.
And so it started on this camp, you know, her calling the community together. We had educators from PPS and people who,
in other places like Rankin, where they were struggling with their school systems on behalf of their children. And then Barbara left and she said, well, Tomoneka, you and Wanda gonna have to keep this going. And so the advocates we continued meeting, we were meeting in the Lomans home,
the library and the Hill, we met in a Hill House. We met at different places. And then out of that came,
and this started 30 years ago. We had been struggling in an organized way on behalf of African-American students in Pittsburgh public schools that Barbara Sizemore had centered us around. - See, and I didn't even know that she was a part of that story. - Barbara started it. She started it. And so that evolved into the equity advisory panel. And so, and we have a small group of volunteers, the equity advisory panel in Wanda Henderson, shout out Women's Hearst Story Month, is the current chairperson. And Wanda sat in place, she said, well, we need to have an equity office. So that's how there's an equity office in the Pittsburgh public schools. But we have been struggling on behalf of our children in an organized way, because we had to file a complaint against the Pittsburgh public school district on behalf of our children with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. We didn't have money for an attorney to sue the district. So I did want to interject that about Barbara Sizemore and how my involvement with the advocates for African-American students picked for public schools and equity advisory panel. That's part of my community education. - Yeah, community education, there it is. And I also, thank you for sharing all those elements of your story. And I also think it's important for people to hear all those pieces, because oftentimes when you see or know a person, sometimes you think it was just like one big splash or one big thing that happened and then they became the person that they are versus like, no, these are cumulative,
kind of pebbles on a journey, pebbles on a pathway, multiple events, multiple people pouring into a person or a person finding their passion and interest, showing up and manifesting who they are, from parents and caregivers to community members, to teachers and educators. Everyone has this role in thinking about just,
thinking about my son's own education and just how it just being in conversation with school officials and everything and just really sitting with the power that educators have and how the power and how they wield that power can enrich and nourish a student's life or it can block them away from opportunities that changed their life in negative ways. So it's really good to hear all of the people and saying the names of all these people who are a part of your journey.
- I thank them because so many people have poured into me and continue to pour into me, as well as parents. But sometimes our parents don't have letters behind their neck or name like a BS or MSW or a DR in front of it, but they have wisdom and the strongest thing they have is love for their children, love for their children.
And I think too often it's not respected or recognized and that our parents are assets and their children are assets. Barbara Sosman used to say, parents would send their children to school and say, I'm sending you with a guy. So what you gonna do? - Yeah. - And a lot of our parents don't know, the schools are not designed for our children as a collective to be successful, to love who they are, to be leaders and change agents.
It's designed for certain people, certain categories,
but then I stay involved. I don't believe in the system because sometimes I look at these public school systems as killing fields, killing the spirits of our children, but I stay involved and advocate on behalf because the masses of black children are there.
And I feel I am obligated to be there on their behalf. I have to. - That's right, that's right.
All right, let's get into freedom schools. You can't see Medina smile. That's one of the things I love about her. She has this smile that's just... - Oh, thank you, you're gonna make me blush. I'm already blushing.
I appreciate, I mean, it's just, you know, it's just such an honor to hear your story and witness your story. And I'm just so excited that so many people are gonna hear it.
So yeah, let's get into freedom schools. If you can tell us, you know, putting your freedom school, look at your, now look at your smile right now. (laughs) If you could put on, now I know you were the former director of freedom schools or project director of freedom schools, as well as the current, always and forever ambassador of freedom schools. So if you can tell us about freedom schools in general and then your work with freedom schools specifically, and what do you consider to be the freedom schools way? - I need to say that I'm a self-proclaimed ambassador of freedom schools. The national office did not say, "Tomah, this is what we want you to do." No, I'm self-proclaimed.
I love the model of freedom schools. I love freedom schools. It is one of the best experiences I've had in my life, life altering experiences.
And when I first learned about freedom school because I was involved with Stanford Children, which is one of the divisions of the Children's Defense Fund, have received some information in the mail, talked about other programs and they mentioned freedom school. And okay, read carefully, because I didn't read carefully. I said, "Okay, this sounds great. Oh, but it doesn't include me." So I tossed it. They sent it the following year. And it said intergenerational.
And what I did, I thought, "Oh, this is great. This sounds really good." So I knew Malik Bankston, who then was the executive director of the Kingsley Association. I told him about it, took the information to him and he read, he said, "Hmm, this looks like something we might wanna do." And he said, "But you know, we can't do it alone." He reached out to Dr. Regina Holly, who was then principal of Lincoln School. And she said almost identical thing, "Hmm, this looks like something we might wanna do." And so that was the beginning. It's a very long application process as Audra's. I mean, it's a long, very detailed process. And the cost of it,
I was on another webinar about Freedom School that was being presented. And the one brother said, "Stop saying that it's costly in terms of dollars and cents."
But my thing is invest now or pay later in terms of the cost.
CDF does a phenomenal job of training the project directors,
the site coordinators and the servant leaders. And I remember, and I'll just jump to it real quick. We had to go to the farm. CDF had purchased the Haley Farm in Knoxville, Tennessee.
And so we get to the airport, they have shuttle buses for us to take us to the farm. And I'm getting off the bus. Young man takes my hand, helping me off the bus. And he said, "Welcome home." And I'm looking around, "What was he talking to? I have never been here before. I don't know what he's talking about." And so that was an experience in and of itself. And to be around other people who love and care about children in the training, we would start early in the morning. We wouldn't get back to our hotels until midnight or whatever, so very, very long time. But the partnership was formed between the Keynesian Association and Lincoln School. And Dr. Holly had a lot going on at Lincoln. And she already had a summer program
for children who might need some brushing up or due to advance in preparation for the upcoming school year. So she already had that summer program. What she added on was freedom schools. But what she said is she said, "I want freedom schools to be a part of everything."
And so the other children, the other programs she had would benefit from freedom schools.
And so the way CDF had a design is that you would have 10 scholars per classroom and one servant leader. And the servant leaders, the training was just phenomenal. And so we had to find the servant leaders. And so that first year, and going to different community meetings or whatever, and I would scout out, I would come on Pitt's campus, I would go to community meetings to try to find, and they would know who I was,
trying to find the right servant leaders or within the community or go to community meetings or just something at the library. I would go different places just trying to find servant leaders. - And can I ask you on the servant leaders training, kind of what you can remember, what was the training like? - Okay, I never, the project directors are not there with the servant leaders when they have their training. First, the project directors get their training and how to set up the program, what is needed, put everything in place. And then the project director would hire the site coordinator. Then the site coordinator would go separately from the servant leaders because they would have to get trained. Shout out to the EBTs, Ella Baker trainers. And I'm invoking the name Ella Baker, Women's Herstory Month. And so the EBTs would train the site coordinators and the servant leaders. But the servant leaders will be taught how to set up a classroom, how to work with the scholars, believing in the scholars, they would have the circle,
all classrooms would have a circle, there would be a welcome sign.
You would have the scholars' names up on the walls, the decor would reflect who these scholars are, their culture and community. So they knew how to set up the classroom and they would have what's called IRC training, Integrated Reading Curriculum. And I meant to bring a curriculum book so I could show you, you can look at it. But there was a staff, a group that would, who developed the IRC and select the books. And so we showed them about a lesson plan. They were taught how to deliver a lesson plan, almost like what teachers would do, using the KWL.
And so the books will be selected. And so how do you present the book to the scholars? And so an important part of that too would be Harambe. They would have long sessions about how to do Harambe. Harambe is Keith's ball, Higley is like either come together, let's pull together. So Harambe is high energy, they're jumping up and down, you had his motivational theme song, Something Inside So Strong, which I love.
And there's movement to that. The cheers and the chants, and the servant leaders are jumping around doing the cheers and chants, like rock the freedom school, or freedom school is red hot, go freedom schools, go.
So it's a lot of different cheers and chants. And then so how do you deliver a story to children? And I love it, oh, I love it so much. And so the stories, not just you read the stories, but you act the stories out. So the servant leaders are acting the stories out. And I remember when I went for my training, and Dr. Joan Parrott was then the national director of freedom schools.
And I'm trying to think of the book as one of my favorite books.
The Eagles, we thought they were chickens. And I went, she went running around, we're in this lodge in the cafeteria room, and running around, she said, I'm an eagle, I'm not gonna let them catch me, but you ought to read it. Read the eagles who thought they were chickens. So the servant leaders would know how to deliver that, and to look at our scholars' eyes in amazement.
And so then after a while, they would engage the scholars. Sometimes the servant leaders and the scholars would read the story, those scholars would act the story out.
And so that's during Haranva, you had a cheers and chants, you had read aloud, and our recognitions and announcements. And like if it was somebody's birthday, you would call them out, we found a soul train line, and they would come down the middle, and sing happy birthday, Stevie Wonder style. So Haranva, that starts today, I mean, to get ready for today. But the training, the ROC is an integral part of that. And so freedom school starts, our site, what we would do, we would have a morning meeting with the staff coming at 7.30 in the morning. And I know I had to be to be, I decided I would be there before them. But just to get ready for the day. And then breakfast, CDF says, you must have a site that has breakfast,
and they didn't need to have a nutritional meal, and to have it with the scholars.
So that's a part of that. And then you would go into Haranva, and we go through the whole thing, Haranva. And after Haranva, and I remember times, servant leaders, because this is in the summertime, it's a six-week program, we're outside or either in a gym doing Haranva, they will be soaking sweat just running down, exhausted. And then they have to go through the ROC,
present the ROC to the scholars. And to see the scholars listening, and learning, and growing from it. And the way CDF laid out how you are to present it, so our servant leaders knew how to do that. And I remember our first site, we thought we were gonna be at the Lincoln School Building,
but I think they had some kind of construction, something came up and we weren't able to be there. Dr. Holly arranged for us to go to a building, a school building in Lawrenceville. And we got there, the servant leaders, we got there, and they knew how they were supposed to set their room up. And our first site coordinator, and her face and everybody, look, we were in complete silence and like, what?
And she said, "Okay, y'all, you know what we got to do. I'll never forget that." And so we had to make a way out of, it's not a way out of no way, but you have to do what you gotta do on behalf of the children.
And to our site coordinator and one of our servant leaders went to Chatham and they stayed on campus. We might've been two of them, but I remember them have to walk up that long hill, but they would go to the library and get books for our scholars. Even though CDF, we had books for the RRC, but at the time we didn't have the books for,
because part of the day was dear time, drop everything and read, so scholars would have books. So, you know, get things of interest to them. And I would see them with lugs, the books on their back and just going up that hill. I just love these young people.
So, Freedom School was a special place. And so there are people trying to resurrect
Freedom School across the country. And I have gotten way off track. What else did you ask me about? - No, no, you're fine, because you're describing elements of Freedom School. And what grade range were the Freedom Schools for? - We had, there are different grade levels, but Freedom Schools actually went up to high school. - Okay. - And they actually had Freedom Schools inside of juvenile detention centers. - I didn't know that. - But our Freedom School went from, I think we had, do we have first graders? No, we had level two. So we had three, four and five grades, three, four and five. - Okay. - But one of the things I wanted to point out what Dr. Holly did, I would pay close attention to a lot of things. But she had hired high school students to work with the children in her summer program and reading to them, tutoring them, and just relating to them. And one of the key things about Freedom Schools, it's not just the literacy.
Culture is an extremely important part of it because our children don't get that in traditional schools. So our culture is very important. It's very important. So the afternoon activities is very important. The books are very important. Literacy, yes, is very important. People know a lot about literacy, but the number one thing that Freedom Schools says and Marian Wright Edelman made it very clear,
what needs to happen is to build relationships with the scholars. That's first and foremost. And then literacy is secondary. That'll come along. And so our servant leaders know how to do it. Those EBTs taught them well. And when they come back from national training, they are ready. This time said they would call me from national training, "Miss House, guess what? Guess who was our presenter today? Guess who was guest reader? Guess who did this? Guess who did that?" Because Marian Wright Edelman, she was able to build relationships so she can call upon people like Jeffrey Canada. I mean, they were so, I have a list here of some of the ones that I remember. Dr. Greg Carr,
Vanessa Gibson,
Charles Cobb, Bob Moses. Can you imagine Charles Cobb, who's the one who said, "Let's have Freedom School?" Who would be there?
There were so many that were there. Sonia Sanchez, Vincent Harding. I remember sitting right next to Vincent Harding in training and what he said he wanted to do the next year. I said, "That's good." I said, "Because I have Tennessee connection." I said, "I thought we would hook up." But then he had taken ill. So I wasn't able to meet him. Anthony Browder did phenomenal training with the servant leaders. - Y'all had Anthony Browder. - Yes. - That was the first non-Valley contributions to civilization. That was the first book that I, I was in my Africa's glorious golden age class at Berkeley High School. We had to go pick a book that resonated with us. That was the book that I picked by Anthony Browder. - He was there a number of times and he did a training session. And I didn't find out until years later what the training session was because I think he had told them not to talk about it. But it was a slave enactment coming over from the mid Atlanta,
coming across that ocean and experiences that they had.
So that year, he was there a number of times. Hollis Watkins, Pedro Noguetta, Sweet Honey and the Rock, Kirk Franklin,
to live, was it to live? - Kweli. - Kweli, he was there. So they had a number, September Clark.
There was a number of invited people, Charles Ogletree. There was a number of months that they had.
The room, so it went on and on. They got to see all of them. The project directors, we didn't. - Because the side coordinators and servant leaders did. - Gotcha. So I got a follow up question I'm curious about that's kind of connected here.
When you mentioned that you kind of went here, there and everywhere, looking for just the right servant leaders. In your mind, what were the qualities that you were looking for? Or when you think back on some of the servant leaders who worked with freedom schools that you encountered and met and engaged with, what was it about them that you feel made great servant leaders and did a really effective job at engaging our children in particular? - CDF lays out the type of servant leader we need to try to hire. I went off script a little bit, some of that. But one is to say to hire college students,
college experience at least one year, they'll be 21 years of age or whatever.
And I changed that up a little bit for myself. But they have to be energetic. Because you do haram, but you cannot come in and just-- - Rock the freedom school, rock the freedom school. - No, you have to be high. And rock the freedom school, rock the freedom school, stop. You just have to be high energy. You have to believe in the children and believe in our scholars. And I had interviewed some that said who would put our parents down
or put the scholars down like, nah.
But I did hire one that was like that. And it changed. I saw some other things in that person. But to have that energy, have a commitment, but without training, what helps is that commitment. But a lot of times first and foremost, and I would do my interviewing very, very different than maybe some other people would do. But so we know young people come, look, I'll kind of make some money.
Plain and simple. And I could read through who is there just for the money and those who are there for something different. But you still have to work with that because everybody does need money to do what they have to do and do what needs to be done.
But one is to have, you're not gonna always find somebody who is politically or culturally conscious and that's okay. But to have an open mind for that, for them to learn that they're willing to learn and grow.
One that they can develop if they don't already have a developer commitment. I have hired young people who weren't in college,
but they were politically and culturally conscious. So for the rest of the staff, they needed that. So they were able to teach and share with that.
And so willingness to give. So there's a whole litany of things that you look for. And a lot of times I just looked at an individual and someone, you would try to get perhaps at least one person from the community that parents knew and recognized or the scholars recognized.
And what would that person be able to deliver to Freedom Schools? And each year you should be able to get better.
And so there are some legacies that servant leaders and site coordinators and project directors have left for Freedom School.
Some of the things, amazing things that they have done.
Some of the things they've done
that they don't think I know that they've done, but they've done on behalf of the scholars. You can't have your favorites. You shouldn't try to do this, don't do that, that sort of thing. But if something was in them, they're like, no, I need to do this. So that was okay. But it's for them to grow too. And a lot of people think Freedom Schools is just for the scholars. No, Freedom Schools says we need to have young leaders. So that's a part of it. So you try to select those who you would hope they would go on after Freedom School and do some type of leadership.
And the theme of Freedom Schools, I can make a difference in self-family community, country and world through hope, education and action. So each week is one of those things and all the books are related to that weekly theme. And so we would hope also that our parents will become leaders and advocates.
So those are things too, because parent,
we had to have weekly, each site had to have weekly sessions with our parents and families. We called ours Parent Power because we wanted our families to understand you do have power.
Maybe no one has ever told you that or you don't see it within yourself and then we'd break off in small groups. And I do have to say how much the parents would say,
come up to the servant leaders and listen as they would talk with them or if they talk with me about how much they appreciated Freedom School. And so they wish they had had those books
when they were coming through school. They appreciated that the scholars got to take home a book a week. So either to add to the library that they had or to start their own library.
And not all scholars embraced reading. We wanted them to, we want to, Freedom Schools is like to open up the world of reading to them to have an interest in reading.
And I used to walk from, I guess it was, oh, from Kingsley, no, from Lincoln to Kingsley or back and forth or whatever. And I would take different routes. And a couple of times I would find a book from Freedom School on the ground. So I don't know if the scholar accidentally dropped it or just like let it go or whatever. But our parents really appreciated that. And I remember a couple of times we interviewed parents and just no rehearsal or anything.
Talk about dynamite. And we talk about Freedom Schools is dynamite. These parents were dynamite to listen. See, listen to our parents. They have a message and school systems don't want to do that.
So it meant a lot to them too. And I know some of the Southern leaders, how they've gone on and they started families and they used some elements of Freedom School or those who become teachers, we have one who's a principal.
And anecdotal things about the impact that Freedom School has had. We have several attorneys.
- Yeah.
And I'm sure like, just like you're talking about just how you talked about your journey and your story and you named different folks that you met and programs that you participated in, I'm sure with the servant leaders and psych coordinators, Freedom Schools is a step on their journey as well. They would name that, I'm sure. - Yeah, they still do.
One of our former, she was a servant leader and then she became psych coordinator, I think. And she said she was in Florida riding with her uncle
and she was listening to a radio station and someone that we both know had mentioned about Freedom Schools in Pittsburgh. She said, "What?" And so she said, "Ms. House, Ms. House, guess what, guess what, you know, I was in a car and I listened to somebody mention about Pittsburgh Freedom Schools."
So, and there are other Freedom Schools who are doing great things. It's not just for black children, but essentially that primarily for African American children, but there were Latino sites.
When I went down to training, Philadelphia had, they called it Concresso and they said, "Concresso and everybody's just, you know." So, they got along really well. And so what they had to speak up and say on behalf of their children, it's like, there are not enough books. These books about black children. We need books about our children. And so CDF had to meet that. I remember one time I went to training and I would use it go by myself because a lot of sites they had multiple sites. So only one project director, we only had one site here in Pittsburgh and Kingsley led. But, and I noticed two people sitting in a corner and I just went over to them and they were Vietnamese and they were just like, just I could tell they weren't feeling it. So I introduced myself, started talking to them. And this was after Hurricane Katrina. And she's this, and they were doing a haram by cheers and chants. And she said, "This will never work for us. "This will never work for us." Because their culture is like very, very different.
And lo and behold, didn't I find out, I was doing some research about freedom schools and I found out the site that was in New Orleans, the Vietnamese site, he turned it into his culture.
And the children were into it. V-I-E-T-N-A-M and other cheers and chants. He made it, he related to their culture. So that's why the culture is such a very, very important part of freedom schools. So with our afternoon activities, I remember our first couple of years we had cat weather, was at African-Brazilian martial art. And when I went back after debriefed at national training, they had never heard of cat weather. But we would have African dance, they were surprised we had African dance, we had African drumming. We had chess, yoga,
so many different activities that we engaged swim in a lot of different activities that we had over the years, afternoon activities. Cause that's a requirement of freedom school. That's a day in the life of freedom school. - Thank you for joining us for part one of our In My Skin podcast episode featuring the dynamic Tomahneka Howes. Be sure to join us for part two for more.