About CFS

“In our history classes, we as young people learn about this country’s most noted activists, but we often incorrectly infer that there is some type of age limit when it comes to working toward social justice. My experiences at the Chicago Freedom School have shown me otherwise.”

- 2008 Freedom Fellow

Legacy of the Freedom Schools

During the summer of 1964, thirty Freedom Schools were established in towns throughout Mississippi to address racial inequalities in the educational system. Mississippi’s black schools were poorly funded, and teachers had to use hand-me-down textbooks that offered a racist slant on American history. The Freedom Schools offered a rebuttal to this reality. Their curriculum included black history, the philosophy of the Civil Rights Movement, leadership development in addition to remedial instruction in reading and arithmetic. The Freedom Schools had hoped to draw at least 1000 students that first summer, and ended up with 3000.

The Civil Rights Movement is a well-documented example that demonstrates the importance of youth-led social change. The Chicago Freedom School builds on the original Freedom School model by seeking to enhance Chicago youth’s connection to their histories and serving as a catalyst for youth-led social change today.

For more information about the original Mississippi Freedom School curriculum, please visit Dr. Kathy Emery’s site, Education and Democracy.

Why the Chicago Freedom School?

The Chicago Freedom School was founded by individuals committed to social justice who recognized a need for a citywide effort to provide a space for Chicago’s young people to gain new skills, build alliances across neighborhoods, identities, and ideologies. CFS planners envisioned a positive and safe space where young people could explore social problems through the lens of identity and design their own activist projects. From this experience youth would come to recognize their own power in making change – not only for themselves but also for their community and world.

The Chicago Freedom School is grounded in creating a place where youth can emerge as leaders through developing an activist orientation that would extend beyond any particular campaign and be sustained throughout their lifetime. The CFS is also envisioned to be a place where youth leaders, who are critically thinking and raising their consciousness, are not subjected to isolation but are able to connect with other like-minded people. Finally, the CFS takes a unique perspective in developing youth as leaders by linking young people to their history. The CFS incorporates a new approach to developing leadership skills by highlighting youth leadership throughout historic social change movements. The CFS seeks to engage youth in personalizing history so that they can see its relevance to their lives and role as leaders in their communities.

Guiding Principles

The Chicago Freedom School builds on the tradition of freedom schools by creating a space where youth can learn about the past, while developing tools to engage in community building and social change. Our guiding principles are as follows:

1. We believe in personal, social, and political consciousness to boldly fight all forms of oppression and inequality.
2. We are committed to addressing adultism as a systemic problem by improving the fabric of our society to be more inclusive and respectful towards youth.
3. We are dedicated to fostering the empowerment of youth who are criminalized, racially profiled and marginalized by discriminatory public policies.
4. We are committed to providing youth with opportunities to become part of a permanent social justice movement.
5. We aspire to create transformative changes in all members of the Chicago Freedom School community.
6. We believe in liberation from all forms of violence.
7. We respect the dignity and interconnectedness of all beings and recognize this as the foundation for non-violent solutions to human problems.
8. We believe that it is important for youth from various communities to see themselves as part of a larger world within and beyond Chicago.
9. We believe that young people have power to create and lead social change.
10. We are committed to have youth at least equally involved in the development, the governing and the administration of the school.
11. We believe in youth and adults working cooperatively at all levels of planning and we appreciate caring and supportive parents/guardians who join with us as partners in social change.
12. We see aspects of today’s youth culture as valuable organizing tools.
13. We believe that reflection, evaluation, and action are equal and necessary components of social change.
14. We are committed to maintaining an environment of everlasting and mutual learning and growth.
15. We believe that having fun is an important part of interacting and learning.
16. We value spaces where honest, authentic language is always used.
17. We value spaces where all participants hold each other and themselves accountable.
18. We are committed to building an open organization where decision-making is consensus based.
19. We respect and embrace diversity in all its forms.
20. We envision the Freedom School as a physically, socially, emotionally, and intellectually safe space.