Freedom School CFP

Introduction:

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) has existed for more than a century. ASALH was founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1915. We consist of 45 branches and dozens of institutional member organizations spread across the 50 states. Our members are professional-university and college-and lay scholars, public school educators, and working and retired persons from virtually every occupation.

Our mission is “to promote research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to the local, regional, national and global community.” To fulfill our central task, we have created the institutional infrastructure that has undergirded the excavation and production of Black history for the past 100 plus years. ASALH is the founder of the Journal of African American History (JAAH),* the premier journal in Black/Africana Studies; Black History Month**; Black History Bulletin (BHB),*** aimed at public school educators; and since 1916 has hosted the largest annual gathering of scholars and lay people interested in recovering and distilling the sociohistorical experiences of African  Americans, Africans, and other Afro-descendant peoples.

Purpose of the CFP:

ASALH has received a Flexible Grant from the Mellon Foundation to support the operation of Freedom Schools. We are calling for ASALH Branches and Institutional member organizations to submit proposals to operate any 10-week long Freedom School that will run between September 1, 2025 and January 31, 2026.

ASALH’s Freedom Schools are a response to the historic neglect and current attack on the teaching of Black history. EducationWeek reported that only 12 states have mandates to teach a “module” on Black history (https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/map-where-is-black-history-instruction-is-required/2023/04). Moreover, La Garrett King, Director of The Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education discovered that generally only 1 to 2 lessons or 8–9 percent of total class time is devoted to Black history in U.S. history classrooms” (https://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/publications/articles/se_810117014.pdf). Since 2021, the federal and several state governments have issued executive orders and enacted legislation that curtail the dissemination of Black historical knowledge. Florida’s SB 148 and Executive Order 14190 prohibit discussions of structural racism or racial oppression, thereby banning historically accurate presentations of the Black sociohistorical experience.

The mission of ASALH’s Freedom Schools is to provide the public with “access to accurate Black History outside of traditional public school “classrooms” by providing lessons, research material, and discussions in community settings.” ASALH Freedom Schools concentrate solely on instruction in Black historical knowledge. We are committed to continuing the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s 1960s-era Freedom Schools’ emphasis on stimulating “intellectual curiosity and different thinking,” so as to empower community people to express their hopes and dreams, and to interrogate their history, lived experiences and condition, and ultimately to pursue alternative solutions for transformative social change.

ASALH Freedom Schools will privilege as instructional materials primary documents drawn from Black sociohistorical experiences and secondary sources created by Black people. ASALH Freedom Schools will emphasize critical thinking, the posing and answering of historical questions, and adopt a culturally relevant pedagogy. ASALH Freedom Schools must make use of a variety of multimedia material including but not limited to historically specific cultural artifacts
such as music, poems, paintings, murals, recordings, videos and films, etc. in the teaching/learning process.

Family and friends, whom themselves were mostly denied formal instruction in Black history are the main fount dispersing Black Historical Knowledge. ASALH Freedom Schools will provide a necessary corrective and bring formal instruction of Black history into the community and make such instruction free and open to all.

We start with adults, persons 18 and over. ASALH Freedom Schools will shine a brighter light on the dismal and dark path through which Black historical knowledge currently flows through our community. ASALH Freedom Schools will provide Black and other adults with the most accurate Black historical knowledge available.

Project Scope/Guidelines:

To organize a 10-week course in African American or Black history that occurs between September 1, 2025 and January 31, 2026.

The monies from the Mellon Grant is to support adult education, persons aged 18 and older. Other age groups may participate in ASALH Freedom Schools. Recruitment and curricular materials must focus on adult learners. The purchase and distribution of books for individual participants with Mellon Grant funds can only be provided to adult learners. All participants can benefit from Mellon Grant monies used to support instructor salaries, rental fees for buildings or curricular materials such as videos and other digital or online materials such as primary documents. But books, such as Black History 365,The  African-American Odyssey and Freedom on My Mind etc. purchased and provided to participants with Mellon grant funds must be expended only on adult learners.

ASALH Freedom Schools must begin with the origin of homo sapiens sapiens in the continent known as Africa and introduce participants to Ancient African societies, cultures and civilizations.

ASALH Freedom Schools must locate the African American people within a broad Pan Africanist and Diasporic scope that explores the international and transnational relationships between African Americans, continental Africans and other Afro-descendant peoples. ASALH Freedom Schools must teach a comprehensive rounded Afrocentric view of Black peoples’ sociohistorical experiences. That is, the narrative must center African Americans, Africans and Afro-descendant peoples, tell the story from their perspective, stress their agency and emphasize analyses and interpretations from Black people. It must also examine African Americans, Africans and Afro-descendant peoples across social relationships such as class, ethnicity/nationality, gender, generation, and sexual orientation, etc.

ASALH Freedom Schools should privilege the modal (most frequently occurring) experiences of the majority of Black people during each sociohistorical period, e.g., as enslaved persons, tenant farmers, domestic servants, washer women, industrial workers, and as a subproletariat of part-time, temporary, ununionized low paid benefitless workers; but must not neglect the lived experiences, cultural productions, and perspectives of the minority of quasi-free Black folk and striving middle class professionals and wealthy entrepreneurs in whatever society or historical they lived.

As all history is local, ASALH Freedom Schools should incorporate the sociohistorical experiences of their local Black community into their lesson plans.

Lerone Bennett highlighted the symbiotic relationship between the study of Black history and the struggle for Black liberation. He found every historical period in which there was a strong Black history movement coincided with a high tide in the struggle for freedom, justice and equality; self-determination; and social transformation.

Because the purpose of our historical inquiry is not the pursuit of trivia or the memorialization of disconnected “facts,” but the acquisition of knowledge to better inform struggles for Black liberation. Therefore, ASALH Freedom Schools adopt the Black scholar activist framework and encourage participants to individually or collectively produce a service learning social/racial justice project aimed at empowering their local community.

Eligibility:

Recipients of funds from ASALH’s Mellon grant must be a 501 (c)(3) organization, have a fiscal agent who is or contract with ASALH National to manage their Freedom School’s financial affairs.

Recipients of funds from ASALH’s Mellon grant must have an assigned coordinator who is responsible for organizing the Freedom School, ensuring its operation in accordance with all ASALH policies, maintaining regular contact with and providing updates and delivering a final report to ASALH’s National Freedom School Coordinator.

Recipients of funds from ASALH’s Mellon grant must provide an evaluation of the program and submit a report 30 days after the end of the program. The report must include curricular materials such as lesson plans, teaching aids such as the names of primary documents and otherhistorically specific cultural artifacts such as music, poems, paintings, murals, recordings, videos and films, etc. used in the teaching/learning process and the results of participant evaluation.

ASALH National will employ an evaluator who will construct a common evaluation instrument for Mellon grant recipients to use in assessing their Freedom School. Grant recipients must submit a final report no more than 30 days after the end of their Freedom School project. The report must include curricular materials such as lesson plans, Power Point or Goggle slides, teaching aids such as the names and urls of primary documents and other historically specific cultural artifacts such as music, poems, paintings, murals, recordings, videos and films, etc. used in the teaching/learning process.

Target Audience:

We expect to provide funding to about 10 ASALH Branches and/or Institutional members to provide adult education (18+) in African American or Black history.

Timeline: Applications are due August 28, 2025. Applicants will be notified by August 29.

Project Budget:

Based on the proposal the project may be awarded up to $20,000.

A budget for the Freedom School must be included with the application.

* The JAAH was originally known as The Journal of Negro History (JNH, 1916).
** “Negro History Week,” 1926-1976 preceded Black History Month.
*** Negro History Bulletin (1937-2001).