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About Us
Charles L. McNair
Freedom School of Saginaw
History
The Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools program has its origins in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964, which brought college students from around the country to Mississippi to secure justice and voting rights for Black citizens. These early Freedom Schools aimed at keeping Black children and youth safe and giving them rich educational experiences that were not offered in Mississippi's public schools. In a variety of makeshift settings, college student volunteers provided instruction in reading, writing, humanities, mathematics, and science along with subjects not taught in Mississippi public schools, such as Black history and constitutional rights. All of their instruction was tailored to encourage children and youth to become independent thinkers, problem solvers, and agents of change in their own communities.
The Charles McNair Freedom School of Saginaw was birthed in the summer of 2023 and three sites are scheduled to open in June 2024 serving 100 community students.
Program Overview
The Charles McNair Freedom School of Saginaw will be open for the first time in Saginaw, Michigan in the Summer of 2024. Freedom School is a free six-week, literacy-based summer program for students in grades K-12. The mornings are dedicated to the integrated reading curriculum and afternoons consist of various activities including STEM engagement, field trips, and social action activities. Freedom School encourages a love of reading and learning through culturally diverse curriculum. The Integrated Reading Curriculum affirms our scholars with engaging literature and exposure to the broader community. We hire college-aged students to teach and mentor our scholars in classrooms with a 1:10 teach to student ratio. During the six weeks, we also encourage the parents or our scholars to be engaged in their children's learning through parent empowerment sessions in the summer and multiple volunteer opportunities.
MISSION:
The mission of the Charles McNair Freedom Schools of Saginaw is to expand the work and legacy of the CDF Freedom Schools program to empower communities and develop future leaders by promoting literacy and civil engagement.
Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president emerita of Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), has been an advocate for children, especially children in poverty for her entire professional life. Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation’s strongest voice for children and families.
Mrs. Edelman, a graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, began her career in the mid-60s when, as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. In l968, she moved to Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Poor People’s Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began organizing before his death. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the Children’s Defense Fund. For two years she served as the Director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University and in l973 began CDF.
Mrs. Edelman served on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College which she chaired from 1976 to 1987 and was the first woman elected by alumni as a member of the Yale University Corporation on which she served from 1971 to 1977. She has received over a hundred honorary degrees and many awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, and a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship. In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings which include: Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change; The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours; Guide My Feet: Meditations and Prayers on Loving and Working for Children; Stand for Children; Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors; Hold My Hand: Prayers for Building a Movement to Leave No Child Behind; I’m Your Child, God: Prayers for Our Children; I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children; and The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation.
Mrs. Edelman is a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation and the Association to Benefit Children, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Marian Wright Edelman is married to Peter Edelman, a Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. They have three sons, Joshua, Jonah, and Ezra, two granddaughters, Ellika and Zoe, and two grandsons, Elijah and Levi.