What role did education play in the US civil rights movement? What did it look like for anti-racist organizers to build radical schooling and organizing spaces that could evade the harsh surveillance lights of white supremacy and Jim Crow? What lessons can we learn from them today?
Spell Freedom traces the educational program that was the underpinning of the civil rights movement and voter registration drives. The Citizenship Schools originated from workshops in the summer of 1954 at the Highlander Center, a labor and social justice training center, located on a mountain in Monteagle, TN, just after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. The heart of the book is Elaine’s vivid retelling the stories of the four main leaders of the citizenship school movement, Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson, Esau Jenkins, and one of the founders of the Highlander Center, Myles Horton. She traces the path from this mountain center to Charleston and the sea islands of South Carolina, all framed by the segregated and racist South and the leaders who rose up to organize and resist Jim Crow and create a new South.
As is often said in southern movement building (from the World Social Forum in 2006), “another South is possible; another South is necessary,” and Spell Freedom connects the histories and voices of the movements that continue to be necessary today.
Episode Credits:
Co-hosts and co-producers: Lucia Hulsether and Tina Pippin
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Lucia: Elaine, thank you so much for being here. We'd like to start out by just asking you what sparked your interest in Highlander and social movement and citizenship and freedom schools and how you came to this topic.
Elaine: Topic. My previous book was about how American women won the right to vote, the seven decade struggle to be considered full American citizens. And one of the things that. Emerged from writing about that was that though the 19th Amendment gave the right to vote to all American women's citizens above the age of 21, that was the legal voting age of the time.
Elaine: It was true that [:
Elaine: The 15th amendment was also ignored so that black men had been denied the vote. So I was very interested, again, as a continuation of my exploration of. How American democracy has restricted large swaths of its population of its own citizens to be able to participate in their government. I wanted to explore what happened in the South with black women.
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Elaine: So that's how it came about. And. It was very exciting to have these strands be able to tie together with the story of the citizenship schools. And there you have Highlander and you have what's happening on the ground, and you have these wonderful characters MCC Clark plays such an important role that I think has been underappreciated.
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Tina: Could you set the stage for what was going on at that workshop? Sure.
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Elaine: She's been an NAACP activist since she was 19 years old. She's been fighting Jim Crow in her own way, in her classrooms and in her civic life. She's very active in all kinds of community organizations. And she really believes in education as a liberating force. Slightly different orientation than.
Elaine: Miles Horton has to education, but really on the same wavelength. And so she is encouraged by a friend of hers in Charleston to attend a Highlander workshop. And this is just weeks after the Brown decision has come down from the Supreme Court. And of course it doesn't be we often mark the beginning of the American 20th century civil rights movement to that brown decision.
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Elaine: And she goes to Highlander for the first time, is just amazed as, as often is the case for a black person to go to Highlander to live in an integrated community for the first time. It's really life changing. Miles, Horton from the beginning said, we are not gonna run a segregated facility. We are gonna be integrated Now, not that many black labor affiliates did come certainly quite a few, but it was known as the only place in the South really.
Elaine: Whereas Horton, so ly put it people could. T and p together, they could live together. They were in the dorms together. They share rooms. Black and white women and black and white men sharing rooms. They eat together at the tables. They sit together in the classrooms and in the library.
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Elaine: She gets so energized and she goes back with a plan, just like you're supposed to from highlighter, you discuss things, but then you go home with a blueprint. What are you going to do? The last thing Miles, Horton would do in a workshop is say, what are you gonna do when you go home? And so by that time the participants in the workshop will have discussed this and debated it and made a blueprint of what they want to do.
Elaine: And whether [:
Elaine: Making speeches at, the the black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina where the teacher training is and trying to get people excited PTA meetings again, the schools are still segregated at this point and she is just out there organizing a the community to take advantage of the Supreme Court's decision, and that wasn't easy.
swer about how Highlander I. [:
Lucia: And I'm wondering if you could elaborate on some of the specific kinds of pedagogies, teaching, learning exercises, and the underlying philosophy of that, that you encountered when you were working through the archives of Highlander. What did it actually look like when folks were debating, practicing, doing role plays, et cetera?
Lucia: During these trainings.
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Elaine: But some and also reading the descriptions, both of my Horton describing them, SEP MCC Clark, who becomes a staff member at Highlander. And also other participants. And I think a, what I found really fascinating was that Miles Horton had this kind of homespun Socratic method that he would use.
Elaine: Very folksy, very laid back, but very pointed. And he didn't let people off the hook spouting platitudes or making a pronouncements or or maybe getting the facts wrong. He would interject and he would play devil's advocate and he would push people in his folksy way sometimes to an uncomfortable space.
of how this worked, I found [:
Elaine: Lunch counters. This includes people who become quite famous in the movement, like Young John Lewis, young James Bevel Bernard Lafayette, and they are seminary students at American Baptist College. And they've been training with Reverend James Lawson in his seminar on non-violence and and civil disobedience.
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Elaine: By Miles Horton, here's this white man who's saying things like why can't I just eat with white people? What's wrong with that? He doesn't believe that. But he's trying to make them both see how a white person might be viewing this, but also to push them to articulate what is it they want and what how are they gonna make that argument to the public?
Elaine: And they're shocked by it. And so I think in that example, I began to understand in a deeper way how that education it's not just giving lessons and dates or even just discussion. He would leave this with some very uncomfortable questions that made, that shook people up and made them think harder.
Elaine: And that was very valuable.
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Lucia: I think, as I was reading your work, which is so vivid in the kinds of education spaces that it draws out from Highlander to classrooms that are really underfunded, a school bus. There are so many examples of a kind of collective people coming together, and then there's the, then there are the individual figures.
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Lucia: So how did that work at Highlander? Were there tensions that came up that you noticed in the documents or histories that you were reading? And how did you think about that?
Elaine: There definitely were tensions in this case. There were racial tensions because and Miles Forton was very aware of this from the very beginning.
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Elaine: But also when he's dealing with the young fiery students of SNC the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who has their initial meetings at Highlander and he says, I as a white person. Cannot and should not be leading you, and you should not allow yourself even to be led by the black establishment.
Elaine: Don't let the NAACP co-opt you. Don't let even the just born Southern Christian Leadership Conference, don't let the Urban League. You have to stay true to your own vision of what you wanna do. But when Septa MCC Clark joins the staff as the first black person on staff and the only black resident of Rundy County, pretty much certainly Monte Eagle it's a Sundance pardon me, Sundance.
Elaine: It's a [:
Elaine: But anyway, miles Horton understands that his role first at the Highlander workshop level and then in the civil rights level, cannot be as a leader. He is there to help facilitate education. And when Septima Clark joins the staff there, they have real arguments, loud arguments about how best to administer these citizenship schools, which are designed and developed at Highlander.
acher and as a black person, [:
Elaine: But he knows that, and is very conscious that white people can only advise but should not lead or dictate.
Tina: Yeah. Thank you so much for diving deep into that. I wondered about their relationship and how they worked out those workshops. We could, I. We can come back to some of this later, but I wanted to go more to Charleston and the back of the beauty shop, Esau's bus the schools on St.
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Elaine: Workshop end of June going into the first days of July, and she goes back and she's on fire. She's just, as I said, she is calling meetings and meeting with labor unions with school groups. At the colleges. She's just getting people organized. And one of the people she really wants to contact is someone who she knew as a child.
that time we're talking about:
Elaine: Poorer districts like the Sea Island. And so she goes to Johns Island, which is very close to the mainland here in Charleston but a world away and very impoverished. But she falls in love with the people of Johns Island. And she keeps in touch with this young man who had Esau Jenkins who had to leave school at fourth grade.
Elaine: And this happened very often in, in the rural communities because part of sharecropping was that you signed up your entire family, including your children were bound to this. So after, they could go to school for a couple of weeks or months, a year. And that was it. Once after the harvest.
s. And they're back. They're [:
Elaine: She knows he's trying to organize his neighbors at Johns Island to register to vote. And he has developed this extraordinarily creative way of doing it. He runs a bus service, one of his many entrepreneurial and endeavors is he runs a bus service and he drives people from the island to their jobs in Charleston.
Elaine: And whether that's as a domestic worker or a factory worker or in the shipyards they have to get over. And there's a new, since World War ii, there's been a an actual, bridge built and they can drive over. It used to be you had to come by a little motorboat and it could take nine hours to go 15 miles.
Elaine: So they, [:
Elaine: It was totally unfair. It was totally arbitrary. It was totally subjective, but they needed to know parts of the. State constitution. And so he would study it with them. He's, he is on the steering wheel and he, they're, memorizing, they were basically memorizing those who couldn't read.
illiteracy was probably the [:
Elaine: But it's taking a very long time and he's not teaching them to read. He's teaching them the parts they'll need to memorize and also to discuss it with them so that they can interpret it for the, so it's a civics class really in, in how the government is, least on paper is structured.
read. They've memorized the [:
Elaine: They know their verses back and forth, but it's memorization. And so she comes to Esau Jenkins and says, I would like to read, I'd like to really be able to read that, not just recite it. And he says, oh, I can't, I'm not a teacher. I can't teach you that. And SEPTA MCC Clark knows about this process and what's going on, and she gets hold of Issa Jenkins and says, come with me.
Elaine: Back to Highlander in August. It's this wonderful place. It won't cost you a cent, they'll give you a scholarship. I'll go with you. And he's saying, nah, I'm busy. I've, I've got all these businesses. It's and he's also head of the PTA on John's Island. He's also an elder in the church. He said, I don't have time to the this.
der. He could be a leader on [:
Elaine: And this whole getting to know you, getting. Evaluating whether this is a project Highlander can do, and Miles Horton comes over to the islands and his wife comes over and they stay with Issa Jenkins in their home, which is just not heard of. They stay with Septima Clark in her home in Charleston.
Elaine: All this is very troubling to the neighbors and even to family to a certain extent because it's dangerous, not because they think it's morally wrong, it's because it's dangerous. Esau is, has the first citizenship school on this bus, and they developed the idea Septima Clark and Issa Jenkins, that they're going to try to establish this a kind of brick and mortar school on John's Island.
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Elaine: If they had any association with with civil rights. And we'll see Septima Clark be fired from her job as a teacher after 40 years and lose her pension. But you don't have to worry about that. Even the companies she buys her beauty products from are black owned, so she's insulated.
Elaine: And that was really important in the movement. All through that beauticians played a big role and, and they say, you have to be the teacher. And she says, I've never taught a class in my life. I haven't gone to college. I can't do this. I don't know how to do this. And she says no. And they say, they really throw this guilt trip.
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Elaine: It's still considered dangerous. And so they didn't want white people to know. So that's the origin of the First Citizenship School.
k, I'm thinking about one of [:
Lucia: Everybody has knowledge and the role of the role of the teacher, the facilitator is to bring out that knowledge and to, and so that, that knowledge is a plural thing and a collective thing that we can a midwife together. And that made me wonder if you could say more about the role of women in these movements.
Lucia: So many of the leaders that you talk about, you've talked about so far in this interview and also in your book, are women. How did that shape the philosophy of leadership in, in, at Highlander in all the citizenship schools and Yeah. What's your kind of takeaway from that?
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Elaine: But they would not speak up in these meetings, or if they did, they were shunted okay. And she was really bothered by that. And she's very determined to, to encourage them to speak up and to let their opinions be known and to let the men know that they're valuable not just as worker based, but as thinkers and as leaders.
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And whether that's at their [:
Elaine: There's a black one and there's a white one. She says, this is totally ridiculous, but she knows that, that black women have the capacity and have the experience in in organizing. And so she wants to bring that, she wants to tap that. That's a, just a powerful resource for any movement.
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Elaine: And Septima Clark goes to her dorm room and they have many conversations during that week, and she brings her out and comfort zone says, you'll be okay. You're safe here. And actually accompanies her on the bus back to Atlanta and then back to Montgomery because she's afraid to be on the bus by herself.
ated world, could be. And it [:
Elaine: And she made a special effort to recruit women to come to Highlander. And you see them coming from these very rural areas and she's teaching them to both have the confidence to stand up and to become citizenship school teachers.
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Elaine: So I entered it because it was such a compelling and important story on its own in the years since, and certainly in the month since I've seen so many parallels to what we're experiencing today. Including, of course there's been voter suppression of, or resurgence of voter suppression and state laws in those same states that I'm writing about today.
Elaine: To make it harder to vote and assault on education and on programs to make us a more equal society are being attacked. In so many ways, it's attacking the fundamental accomplishments. Of the movement and the lifelong work of people like Accepta Clark and to a certain extent, miles Horton.
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Elaine: And also that in order to be a full participating. Citizen, you have to understand both your letters and your numbers. And that it's increasingly important in a technologically driven world. So I found that, very powerful too. And so it has taken a different meaning to me to tell this story at this moment.
rights, to understand how to [:
Elaine: One of the things that was taught in the citizenship schools was how your government worked. How, who has power over you? How do you approach that power? How can you organize to affect that power? And I think we have given up, for the most part in our schools and citizen education, civics education.
Elaine: How does your government work? How does your city work? And Septima says, these people would come in, they have no idea what the mayor does. They have no idea who has power over them. And I think we don't really understand how that works too. And it becomes this black box. And when you're dealing with a black box, you can give up.
'cause we're seeing some of [:
Elaine: But also to stand up to power and to oppression. And that's what they did over and over again in big ways and small. And one of the stories that I love best is s MCC Clark is again, she's a middle aged grandmother going through the movement. This is not a young fiery student who has nothing to lose.
Elaine: She because of, she refused to renounce her membership at the naacp. She is fired from her job because the state of South Carolina has outlawed the naacp, which most of the southern states did, and she loses her pension. She has to worry about money from then on in. And she is arrested at Highlander, very famous incident.
bombings, she faces violent [:
Elaine: This is a majority, I think she is now the the first woman, black woman to serve on the Charleston County School Board. This is the school board that fired her 20 years before, and she's elected and she's reelected. And I just found that that is what an American citizen should do. A brave American citizen, a patriot.
Elaine: And I found that just incredibly moving.
Lucia: That's a really great place to begin to wind down. So we'll ask you first, is there anything we haven't asked you that you wanna be sure that we No, I think this has been really interesting.
ch is beautiful. And I think [:
Lucia: Wonderful. Let's do our quick lightning round of our last question that we always ask. Great. Which is what are you listening to, reading, watching, consuming, et cetera, that you would recommend to our listeners?
Elaine: To tell you the honest truth, nothing, I have not had the time to really read deeply.
een reading it on airplanes. [:
Elaine: So I have not read, listened, seen a movie done anything and my husband can attest to this. So I'm afraid I'm going to not be very good at answering that question. I've done very little.
Lucia: If you are looking for a, if you're looking for a backlog of suggestions, there are many from our former guests.
Elaine: I would love to be able to do it and I can't wait to be able to do it myself.
Lucia: Tina, do you wanna tell us what you're listening to, watching, et cetera? Reading?
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Lucia: I think you should probably read it.
Elaine: Wow. Okay. Now I got it on the list. Thanks so much.
Lucia: Thanks Elaine for coming on. Nothing ever happens. We appreciate you and we know you have to you're doing lots of promos, so best of luck and we're grateful that you made the time for us.
Elaine: Thank you. And thank you for your work.
Elaine: Thanks.
o Nothing Never Happens, the [:
Tina: When the book comes out, our audio editor, who is always awesome is Aaliyah Harris. Our intro music is by Lance Eric Hogan, and Aveva and the Flying Penguins. Our outro music is by a crisis, it's called Plateaus Republic, and it comes from the unemployed. Apologist album and you can find it on bandcamp.com.
n Raps and Mark McKee beats. [:
Akrasis: thank Spiff Smoking spliffs in the riff between my childhood and the abyss, or between my childhood and this. Call it what you like.
Akrasis: When I was younger, my scope was focused and I learned to ride a bike in a parking lot with asphalting was a permeate my psych. Oh, the simple pleasures of thankless ignorance. I wasn't even on ritalins, but my days fiddle in with the imaginary friends that wrinkled in through my bedroom Window High Digger says, we're born as many men and die as only one.
ight as well just plummet or [:
Akrasis: There's a lot of there, but don't be scared. Who needs actions when you've got words?
Akrasis: I've got a doomsday device in my hand and a lump in my throat, drew a line in the sand to remind myself that I can decide who I am and act on principle and impose order on madness just as long as my mind's racing against nagging sadness by one demand is that everyone must understand this, and if you don't neither do I
