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Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is now a host site for the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools®. Fifty middle school students from Metro East communities will have the opportunity to enroll in an educational model that identifies as “the intersection of well-being and racial justice for children and youth.” SIUE’s site will be hosted at the Edwardsville campus and will run for six weeks, June 10 through July 19. The 2024 grand opening of this latest site will mark the 60-year anniversary of the movement that inspired the curriculum. 

“The movement comes out of 1964 Freedom summer,” said Tandra Taylor, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of History and SIUE’s interim director of the Institute for Community Justice and Racial Equity (ICJRE) at the Southwestern Illinois Justice and Workforce Development Center in Belleville. Taylor will be the program’s executive director and the ICJRE is the program’s sponsoring partner. 

“This is the 60th anniversary of a movement, and becoming a host site follows our educational mission and our commitment to making education accessible,” said Taylor.

Though the first two CDF Freedom Schools opened in 1995, the program claims its origins in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964, in which college students from around the country traveled to Mississippi to secure justice and voting rights for Black citizens. The college student volunteers, whose lives were threatened on buses that came under attack, brought educational subjects to Mississippi public schools, such as Black history and constitutional rights.

Less than a decade later the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, Marian Wright Edelman, founded the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), an outgrowth of the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm she launched in 1969 that monitored federal programs for low-income families. In 2020 Reverend Dr. Starsky Wilson became CDF’s President and CEO. Wilson is the former President and CEO of the Deaconess Foundation and co-chair of the Ferguson Commission and was the keynote speaker at SIUE’s 40th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Luncheon in 2023.

Currently there are more than 150 CDF Freedom Schools® sites at community and faith organizations nationwide. While the initial site for SIUE’s Freedom School will be on the Edwardsville campus, there are plans to host an additional site in Belleville once renovations are complete. “SIUE is unique in that universities are rare host sites for freedom schools,” said Taylor. “By being a host site, we are normalizing the youth’s experience of being on a college campus.”

“Our efforts to promote educational equity and address wicked problems like racism and poverty that continue to plague our local and global community are only enhanced through partnerships with organizations like the Children’s Defense Fund and the Freedom Schools program,” said Jessica Harris, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Anti-racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. “Because we are committed to the communities in which we are embedded, we want to do our part as a university to address disparities and present pathways to social mobility through education earlier.”

“The CDF Freedom School is an intervention tool that helps prevent summer slide,” said Taylor. Summer “slide” or learning loss is the most significant cause of the achievement gap. “What we already know is that young people in marginalized communities oftentimes miss having a quality education during the regular school year and high-quality summer programming may not be affordable or accessible to underserved students. This is a way to offer high-quality academic learning alongside recreational, hands-on learning and community engagement opportunities.”

Cindy Reed, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of English, will be the program director for SIUE’s CDF Freedom School.

“Programs that teach young people reading fundamentals are necessary,” said Reed. “Freedom School, however, has a different mission. We specifically focus on teaching young people to fall in love with reading. When they cultivate that kind of relationship with books, it opens their minds to a new world that transforms learning from a chore into a joy. The hope is that they will carry the love of reading with them into the school year. This is one of the best ways to show students they, themselves, are key players in their education, that they have some power in the process.”

“This program is in lockstep with the university’s initiatives to increase access to higher education,” said Taylor. “We hope to see some of our Freedom Schools scholars, their family and community members back as Cougars on our campus in a couple of years.”

SIUE’s CDF Freedom Schools® encourages student applicants from Metro East communities, including, Belleville, East St. Louis, Cahokia Heights, Madison, Brooklyn, Venice, Collinsville, Granite City and Alton. The program is need-based, and enrollment will be free to families. If interested, please complete the Enrollment Interest Form found here or send an email to siuefreedomschool@siue.edu.  

PHOTO:  SIUE CDF Freedom Schools® administration Tandra Taylor, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of History and SIUE's interim director of SIUE's ICJRE, Jessica Harris, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Anti-racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Cindy Reed, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of English