EDUCATION Freedom School exposes pupils to realities of Civil Rights battles

The Freedom School has sparked community activism among its participants.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
FARRELL, Pa. -- Hadiya Blue, 9, says she's ready to launch her own voter registration drive.
"I'm going to go to people's houses and get them to register," said one of the younger members of the Family Freedom School, operated over the last month at Southwest Gardens Economic Development Corp. on Darr Avenue.
The Family Freedom School was one of six Freedom Schools conducted around the United States this summer, partly in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Schools that operated in the summer of 1964.
Trip south
The school gave Hadiya and 24 other children and adults attending the program a taste of community activism when it took them on a five-day tour of southern communities where the Civil Rights battle was truly fought.
That included stops in Birmingham, Ala., home of the Civil Rights Institute; Memphis, Tenn., where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was slain and the National Civil Rights Museum is now located; New Orleans, where they visited a school; and Clarksdale, Miss., where the group took part in a voter registration drive in a lower-income section of the city.
They were able to get 26 people to register in about 90 minutes, said Lamont Hailstock, 13.
Many of the children said they were inspired by the trip to become more socially active, and that's a prime goal of the Family Freedom School, said Kimberley Richards, executive director of Southwest Gardens and the driving force behind opening the three-week school.
The school
A total of 35 children and adults attended the school (not all made the southern trip), and the plan is to keep them active by meeting one Saturday a month to continue their effort, she said.
The group will also be making other field trips, including a visit next month to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center that opened last week in Cincinnati. That will tie in with the group's study of the local arm of the Underground Railroad, which will include visits to important local sites that were part of that route, Richards said.
Hadiya won't have to run her own voter registration drive. Other members of the school say that will be a community service focal point for them as well.
The group will be doing a voter registration drive, said Samuel Hosey, a former bar owner originally from Farrell, who moved to Nashville and has now come back to Farrell with plans to open a hair care business for the elderly and underprivileged children.
Pass it on
Acknowledging that he is one of the older members of the school, Hosey said he sees his role as being a mentor.
"This is only the beginning. When you learn something, you've got to pass it on. We've got to keep this ball rolling," he said.
"I've got a lot of work to do," Hosey said, noting that the best way to bring about change is at the polls.
Participating in the school made it more important to him to "bring something good together," he said.
Barbara Blue-Harrold of Farrell, an employee in the secondary Family Center at Farrell High School, said she recalls making visits to Mississippi as a child, and the trip south brought back a whole reality with new meaning for her.
She remembered seeing business and other signs designated for whites only or blacks only, but it was touring the museums that depict the early days of the civil rights movement that showed her the reality of those days.
Reality sunk in
"To be there and walk through the museums was just chilling," she recalled, adding that people don't realize the degree of sacrifice those in the movement had to make. Some have lost that daring, she said.
"We're afraid to take a stand for what is right. It isn't over. It's far from over," she said.
"I don't know if I could have done what they did," said Carolyn Hailstock, retired from Agere Systems and recently returned to Farrell from Allentown. "That's why I want to be a part of Southwest Gardens, to help make change."
Rennie Gash of Farrell, who works with children and is a college student, said two things about the trip impressed him the most. One was realizing that those in the early days of the movement went to the all-white lunch counter or marched for civil rights, knowing in advance that they would be abused for their actions, he said. The second was working on the voter registration drive in Clarksdale.
"That made me a part of the movement," he said, adding, "That's what affected me the most."
Educational concerns
Blue-Harrold said she was "devastated" to learn that children in the South aren't being taught black history in their schools. Children here aren't getting it either, she said.
Many of the 13 school-age children in the school said their grandmothers insisted they come.
Lamont Hailstock admitted he thought it would be boring, but he's since changed his mind.
"Once I started coming, we stated learning about everything," he said, adding that he personally got three people in Clarksdale to register to vote.
His brother, Malcolm Hailstock, 12, said he was surprised to learn that the children at the school the group visited in New Orleans aren't allowed to take school books home, and the books they had were old, dating back to the 1950s.
Hadiya said she learned that just because people might be different, there's no reason to treat them differently.
The cost of the local school was underwritten by the Mercer County Behavioral Health Commission, The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond and International Paper.
Richards said Southwest Gardens still is looking for additional funding to finance the on-going community action effort.