Ella Baker vs. Jim Crow Questions: Critical Questioning, Thinking, and Civic Engagement in Freedom Schools

• In Event: Intentional Black Studies Praxis: Constructing Educational Possibilities and Justice

Abstract

This paper focuses on the efforts of the Center for Africana Studies and Culture’s (CASC) partnership with the School of Education in the sponsoring of a Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School. It will focus on how the center is intentional about ensuring the programming is aligned with the foundational model provided by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1964 Freedom Summer. Also, how Black Studies as praxis is deployed in forming the basis for honoring tradition and history. The paper also engages with the privileging of a generative relationship with the students who work in the program and who later begin to take on leadership roles within the program as they grow into scholar-practitioners who are imbued with the values of social justice and remembrance.

Authors

• Leslie Kenneth Etienne, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Tambra O. Jackson, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Khrisma A. McMurray, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Montayha Jenae Adams, Indianapolis Public Schools