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Freedom Schools Case Study

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In 1953, five cases against segregation in schools reached the Supreme Court. These involved the education policies of Kansas, Virginia, Delaware, Washington DC, and South Carolina (“Education and Civil Rights”). These series of court cases led to one of the most famous civil rights decisions of the 1950’s, Brown v the Board of Education. Reverend Oliver Brown lived in Topeka, Kansas, and had an eight-year-old daughter who had to travel twenty-one blocks to get to her school even though there was one just seven blocks from her home (“Education and Civil Rights”). The school closest to her was for white children only and unquestionably superior to the one she attended. This was not "separate but equal," it was separate and unequal. The head of the Supreme Court at this time was the liberal Earl Warren …show more content…

The purpose, he said, "is to create an educational experience for students which will make it possible for them to challenge the myths of our society, to perceive more clearly its realities, and to find alternatives, ultimately new directions for action" (“Freedom Schools”). During the summer of 1964, thirty Freedom Schools were established in towns throughout Mississippi (“Freedom Schools”). Mississippi’s all black schools were poorly funded and teachers had to use second-hand textbooks that offered a racist perspective on American history (“Freedom Schools”). The Freedom Schools offered a rebuttal to this reality by using a curriculum that asked questions such as, why are we in Freedom Schools? What is the Freedom Movement? What alternatives does the Freedom Movement offer us? What does the majority culture have that we want? What does the majority culture have that we do not want? (“Freedom Schools”) The Mississippi Freedom School Curriculum of 1964 was as

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