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National Catholic Reporter, July 30, 2004 by Arthur Jones

Kenyatta Hartford will be a freshman at Louisiana State University. She is a 2004 graduate of New Orleans' Warren Easton High School:

Five years ago I was a People's Youth Freedom School student. A few years later I became an organizer. Now I'm a Freedom School leader. Most of this year's teachers are like me--we were Freedom School students. This year we developed the curriculum by ourselves. For me, the most important difference between public high school and Freedom School has to do with boundaries. In public school there are boundaries to what you learn--civil rights education is mainly learning about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X during Black History Month. Teachers are pretty rigid. At Freedom School, we begin with the Freedom Code, a student agreement to make our own rules as a group and define our relationship with the teachers. Nobody at Freedom School tells students what should happen; everyone creates their own experience. This might sound vague, but we are better leaders because of it.

There were Freedom Schools this summer in New Orleans; Minneapolis; Seattle; Farrell, Pa.; Oakland, Calif.; and Duluth, Minn.

[Arthur Jones is NCR editor at large. His email address is arthurjones@comcast.net.]