Armed Love and Freedom Schools

• In Event: Still in the Struggle: Education for Liberation in Freedom Schools

Abstract

We theorize relationships among armed love and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) based on our long-term case study of a Freedom School in Rochester, NY. Armed love is not benign, soft, lacking in power, or romantic. Instead, it is a “political and radicalized form of love that is never about consensus or unconditional acceptance or unceasing words of sweetness… it is … rooted in a committed willingness to struggle persistently with purpose in our life and to intimately connect that purpose with what [Freire] called our true vocation - to be human” (Darder, 2002, p. 34). Our conceptual model connects armed love and three forms of community cultural wealth. Specifically, familial capital formed the foundation from which aspirational and resistance capital developed. Together, these forms of capital both fed and were fed by armed love as 1) a context designed to prepare scholars for life in a racist society, 2) the embrace of a collective, supportive community, and 3) embodied in action-oriented relationships.

Author

• Nancy Ares, University of Rochester
  Presenting Author