We want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to our community partners, friends, allies, parents and most of all: our young people who were a part of this Summer Freedom School. This is the 5th year we held our program and this year it was in commemoration of the 50th year anniversary of Freedom Summer.
The program was held in Raleigh, NC at Pullen Memorial Baptist church where we had community friends, adult allies and many many volunteers join us to lead workshops, provide lunches and logistical support and connect with students, giving them insight into the huge world of organizing.
We traveled to Durham for a Durham People’s History tour where we visited the late Pauli Murray’s house, Duke’s East Campus and NC Central University to explore the history of LGBTQ people of color in Durham. We took our second annual trip to Greensboro to visit the International Civil Rights Museum and then went on a grassroots history tour of Greensboro led by our friends at Beloved Community Center.
After 3 weeks, many workshops and 2 field trips, our young people left the Summer Freedom School with a strengthened analysis of systems of oppression such as xenophobia, colonialism, homophobia, ableism and classism. We had 22 youth who participated in the program this year and we are hopeful that our movement spaces now have 22 more young people pushing for youth liberation!
We couldn’t have done this without the support of our community. 
We want to share some of the moments of learning, laughter and transformation from our workshops and conversations that covered topics from climate justice to school to prison pipeline, gender justice to restorative justice!
During the first week of Summer Freedom School we learned about young people’s history and how young people have been at the core of social change. We explored identity and our relationships to history as well as the future. Students created “identity collages” to capture who they are
On our Durham History Tour, our students were joined by a local Durham artist collective to discuss reclaiming space and history through art. We came together at the Durham Farmer’s Market to create art and declare that we are here and our fight continues.
This has been an amazing summer. We are so excited about everything that’s to come and the change our Freedom School youth will be shaking up.