Making History: Freedom Schools and EVC
by Steve Goodman

“I helped make history taking my documentary around Ohio, New York and New Jersey. That is something I will always remember for the rest of my life,” EVC youth producer Shon McGoy explained to me.

Shon was part of the EVC Youth Speakers Bureau team who spent much of the last three months leading up to the presidential election using their documentary on youth engagement in voting as part of a voter registration drive for young and first time voters. They travelled to college campuses, schools, and community centers in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Amherst, Massachusetts; Newark, New Jersey; Old Westbury, Long Island; and throughout all boroughs of New York City screening Journeys Through the Red, White, and Blue, leading discussions and urging their young audiences to get involved and vote. Over 600 DVDs were distributed for community screenings nationwide. Video clips were also streamed on-line in numerous websites with voter information and downloadable registration forms. In addition, two production teams produced six one-minute news briefs airing youth views on the election that were broadcast on BET’s news and YOU(th)VOTE! public affairs campaign. All told, EVC’s youth works were viewed by an estimated twenty million young viewers.

And yes, they did help make history. And they helped change the world. On November 4th, Barack Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. And on that day, approximately 24 million 18-29 year olds cast ballots, more than in any election since 18 year olds won the right to vote in 1972.

It’s important to recognize that their efforts both made history and were only possible because of history. Today’s youth media activists stand on the shoulders of the students who protested, organized, and even gave their lives in voter registration drives in the South during the early 1960’s.

Although youth media activists today use video, websites, and blogs to inform and mobilize young voters instead of mass marches, “sit ins”, and “freedom songs”, they do share a common approach with their historic counterparts that spans across four decades. Both youth movements developed innovative alternative educational strategies for bringing about social change.

Shon explained that before making his documentary, he was apathetic and uninformed about politics. School didn’t awaken his interest or develop his consciousness about the political system. “When you’re looking at the text book, it’s a bunch of words. For me, learning had to be hands on. I had to grasp it. It’s the action that gets you going. And EVC put you in the action of the learning process.”

He became energized and transformed through the process of creating and screening his documentary. He no longer felt he was a student; he had become an artist, a teacher, and an organizer. “It felt good going to Ohio and to the colleges around New York. Being able to answer the audience’s questions was really cool. What is the electoral college? Where do I go to register? How long does it take? Did you feel like your vote was worth it? Is our vote worth it? Eight months ago I couldn’t answer. That felt good.”

Among the most bold and innovative examples of using education for organizing and voter registration during the civil rights movement were the “freedom schools” in Mississippi organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the summer of 1964. SNCC organizers created these schools outside of the state run public school system “to provide an educational experience for students which will make it possible for them to challenge the myths of our society, to perceive more clearly its realities and to find alternatives, and ultimately, new directions for action.” Instead of following traditional teacher-centered classroom rules, college students taught courses for local Mississippi residents in organizing in addition to courses in journalism, drama, art and creative writing. As historian Howard Zinn noted, they were designed to teach students to “find solutions for poverty, for injustice, for race and national hatred, and to turn all educational efforts into national strivings for those solutions.”

We are proud of our youth documentary producers and other student activists who turned screenings and campus discussions into “freedom schools” and helped change the world on Election Day. And we honor those students from SNCC and others throughout the civil rights movement who had the uncompromising vision and commitment to pave the way.

Carson, Claybourne. (1981) In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA., p.110.

Ibid., p. 121.