Kawachi Clemons had a dream sorta like the late great Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. Clemons and Kings dream surround some of the same issues like education, freedom and equality. Clemons has successefully merged education and the culture of hip hop. Kawachi heads North Carolina Central University Hip Hop Iniative class entitled Hip Hop in Context 101. Kawachi has joined forces with hip hop sensations and in Artist Residence’s 9th Wonder and Christopher “Play” Martin in giving birth to a summer program called “The Freedom School.”

Freedom is narrowly defined as the following according to contemporary America. Freedom is defined by Classic Liberals and Neoliberals as the ability to act without restraint from the government, or more broadly defined as the ability to have access to particular resources from the government without constraint by Social Liberals and most variants of Socialism. Defined thus, ‘freedom’ is a broad notion, not necessarily covering the same field as ‘free will’.

These same individuals have defined school. School is an institution where students (or “pupils”) learn while under the supervision of teachers. In most systems of formal education, students progress through a series of schools: primary school, secondary school, and possibly a university , vocational school or a college.

With the political jargon and societal interpretation of freedom and school, presented let’s define the blend of the two and the birth of a hybrid, the creation of Freedom School’s. Freedom Schools were sometimes used for alternative schools set up by civil rights activists in the southern United States in opposition to the racial segregation in public schools which was mandated at the time by Jim Crow laws.

The “Mississippi Freedom Summer Project” of 1964, was a major political plan organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), two principal Civil Rights organizations. In the summer of 1964, over forty Freedom Schools opened in Mississippi, not the fictional school from the runaway youth Billy Jack in the 1974 sequel, The Trial of Billy Jack.

These schools were factual, a part of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, with the goal to empower African-Americans in Mississippi to become active citizens and driving forces of social change. SNCC was comprised mostly of members who were African-American college students, while COFO was an umbrella organization that spearheaded activities of various important organizations such as Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Some of the implementations of the Freedom Summer 1964 Project activities included: promoting a immense drive for voter registration among disenfranchised African-Americans and coordinating a mock election, creating community centers to provide weekly instruction and entertainment for African-Americans, conducting Freedom Schools, a summer education program to provide African-American kids and youth with more edifying educational experience than what Mississippi public schools offered while inspiring the minds of Mississippi children. Freedom Schools taught a force for change not only in Mississippi but throughout the nation by critically engaging in their communities by helping them identify and devise real solutions to neighboring problems.

We’ll you have read about the leaders of the 60’s; let’s take a look into the leaders of the 21st Century, when it comes to Freedom Schools. The Freedom Schools movement was reborn in 1992 under the leadership of Marian Wright Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund’s Black Community Crusade for Children® (BCCC®) to help better prepare and advance African-American students in this changing vision of education. Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund work with community sponsors, parents, young adults and community leaders to forge a new vision and bond designed to help edify young African-Americans.

CDF Freedom Schools program provides critical summer and after-school enrichment through a model curriculum that supports children and families surrounding five vital components that include: high quality academic enrichment, parent and family involvement, civic engagement and social action, intergenerational leadership development, and nutritional health and mental health.

Much like the summer of 1964, college students from various universities and HBCU’s across the country participate in the building of the African-American intellect while homing and developing their teaching skills and ability to facilitate, an educational enviroment.

Since 1995, over 64,000 children and families have been touched by the CDF Freedom Schools program experience. More than 6,000 college students, 1,900 high school students, and 1,100 adult site coordinators and project directors have been trained to deliver this knowledge of innovation.

In the summer of 2006, CDF Freedom Schools sponsor partners served over 7,000 children in 49 cities and 23 states, including over 1,000 children in Louisiana and Mississippi that were affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“An effective social movement needs people who are more interested in developing the leadership of others than in being leaders themselves.” - Ella Josephine Baker