Sunflower

Entitled “Sankofa,” the project tells the story of the civil rights movement in Sunflower County and applies the lessons learned to what young people can do (and are doing) in the area today.

March « 2008 « Bill Ayers 2008

Civil rights activists continued to organize local people, and the next several years saw massive change in Sunflower County.

March « 2008 « Bill Ayers 2008

The SCFP often attracts well-intentioned, even radical students who arrive in Sunflower ready to teach kids how to fight institutional racism, how to discern bias in mainstream media, how to challenge the “received wisdom” of our leaders.

Freedom Schools— an exchange 2008

Reading your materials on The Freedom Project in Sunflower County was, for me, a dissociating experience.

Freedom Schools— an exchange 2008

Civil rights activists continued to organize local people, and the next several years saw massive change in Sunflower County.

Freedom Schools— an exchange 2008

Charles McLaurin, a former SNCC field secretary who still lives in Sunflower County and has served on our board since our inception: “It is in you.”

Freedom Schools— an exchange 2008

In 1962, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began to organize in Sunflower County.

Freedom Schools— an exchange 2008

Our last production, “Thirty Years From Now,” addressed the dicey topic of school integration (which for all intents and purposes has yet to happen in Sunflower County), and our students performed in front of audiences that included not only sympathetic parents, teachers, and activists, but also a significant number of wealthy community members whose children attend private schools and even helped establish the white academies that were the subject of the play.

Freedom Schools— an exchange 2008

Entitled “Sankofa,” the project tells the story of the civil rights movement in Sunflower County and applies the lessons learned to what young people can do (and are doing) in the area today.

Freedom Schools— an exchange 2008

Despite threats and harassment, the Carter children paved the way for other black students to attend public schools, even though the schools in Sunflower and other rural towns were not integrated until the 1969-1970 school year.

Freedom Schools— an exchange 2008