Why Black Lives (and Minds) Matter: Race, Freedom Schools & the Quest for Educational Equity

A number of challenges continue to influence the schooling experience of Black students. While some progress has been made for some, chronic underperformance has remained largely unchanged over the past two decades. What has become increasingly a part of the experiences of Black children and other students of color has been the increasing police presence in schools. In 2015 attention was brought to the presence of police in schools when a South Carolina officer violently removed and slammed a young girl from her desk for defiant behavior in a case that garnered national attention. In this work, the salience and purpose of school police is examined, and in response to the current state of affairs, Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools are offered and discussed as a way of reimagining schools for Black children free of police presence and as a way to re-center learning, literacy and culture.