Beloved,
Earlier this week, in 88 cities across this country, young scholars lifted their voices and their arms as they sang and danced in Harambee celebrations to start the day. For many, this is their first time in the CDF Freedom Schools® program and their first week hearing the motivational song entitled, “Something Inside So Strong.” By this morning, on Juneteenth, they will know all the words and exactly when to flex their bicep muscles. They will cheer and chant without reservation or constraint.
Earlier this week, in 88 cities across this country, young scholars lifted their voices and their arms as they sang and danced in Harambee celebrations to start the day. For many, this is their first time in the CDF Freedom Schools® program and their first week hearing the motivational song entitled, “Something Inside So Strong.” By this morning, on Juneteenth, they will know all the words and exactly when to flex their bicep muscles. They will cheer and chant without reservation or constraint.
O! The sound of freedom!
One of the bright spots in a recently challenging child advocacy landscape for me is visiting CDF Freedom School scholars, college-age Servant Leader Interns (SLIs), parents, and caregivers every summer. At each of our 185 program sites, I get to hear the sounds and reconnect with our “Why?” Earlier in the week, I began my annual listening tour with the only CDF Freedom Schools program in the state of Arkansas.
On Sunday, June 14, I was delighted to join Mayor Frank Scott, Jr., the Honorable Judge Wendell Griffen, the Reverend Dr. Maurice Watson, executive director Dr. Linda Watson, and the members of Second Baptist Church in the John Barrow Neighborhood of Little Rock and bring the morning message for a public ribbon cutting and program launch for the Second Chance Freedom School. On Monday, I had the honor of being the Read Aloud guest during their first Harambee. Then, over breakfast, parents of our scholars shared their hopes and concerns for their children.
Parents and community members imagined happiness, social connection, safety, and health for their children and grandchildren learning in the next room. These caregivers were concerned about the ways social media and technology impacted mental health and how public education policy stripped resources from students with the greatest needs. Over shrimp and grits (upon which Pastor Watson unfortunately poured sugar), mothers and fathers connected their scholars’ well-being to both the work in the Capitol building and the quality of their parental engagement.
Just minutes away from the state’s capitol building, where Arkansas policymakers joined a wave of others in places like Iowa, Minnesota, and New Jersey in reducing child labor protections three years before, parents asked for better schools and play—not jobs—for their children. And in our school quality conversation, freedom became a contested term. It seems so-called “Education Freedom” voucher accounts established in that same 2023 legislative session are the culprits for what they described as school-based resource-stripping and wealth transfer from diverse public schools where their children attend to more homogenous, private schools to which their kids have less access. Ironically, as we were together in the gym, legislators were moving to further restrict their increasingly unpopular “freedom” project for the second time this year, as it proved to be both inequitable and fiscally irresponsible.
We know what freedom sounds like. Children singing. Parents discussing dreams for their community. Elected leaders responding. We just don’t get to hear this enough.
That’s why, alongside our deep programmatic work in CDF Freedom Schools like the one at Second Baptist, we are organizing a #FreedomSummer with partners in the All Roads Lead to the South Coalition and faith-inspired child advocates convening in July at the Hall-Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry.
While the word and the work are contested, we are clear that the opportunity to play, live, and learn “free” is our children’s birthright. This summer—and every summer—we are working hard to make it so.
Join us!
For our children,
Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson
President and CEO