- The American education system has been referred to by some as the school to prison pipeline.

The inequities and disparities that exist between inner city and suburban schools is akin to educational apartheid.

Debates about critical race theory divide our country while black children are denied the true historical account of their forefathers.

Hi, my name is Phillip Davis, the host of Courageous Conversations.

Today, we have with us Reverend Dr. Gregory Edwards, the founder of Resurrected Life Community Church and the president of the Resurrected Community Development Corporation.

Additionally, he is the sponsor of the James Lawson Freedom School right here in the Lehigh Valley.

Don't go anywhere.

We'll be right back.

Well, Greg, welcome to the show.

- It's good to see you again.

- It's the Right Reverend Doctor Man.

I'm always honored to have you and have you share your views and opinions and help to educate people when it comes to issues of race, justice, equity and all that kind of stuff.

But today, we're going to be talking about the Freedom School.

We'll get there.

- Sure.

- But if we could, let's begin with this conversation.

There's this dialog and this debate about critical race theory right now.

- Right.

- And folks are fighting.

It means a whole group came from out of town to Easton last week to debate critical race theory.

What's up with that?

And why are folks so up in arms about it?

- Well, first of all, you know, critical race theory is misunderstood.

It really is a...

It's an interdisciplinary... pedagogy that's really geared for the legal community.

And so there is this widespread pandemonium that, "Oh, my goodness, we're going to be talking about race."

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- "In public education."

And if they called it critical theory...

But I think because it's called critical race theory, folks, folks are... many folks are stuck at that word race.

And there is a significant portion of the American population that sees their demographic dwindling.

And the thought that in a few years the country will be primarily comprised of persons of color has many folks scared.

- There's a fear that is there.

But one of the things that I heard was that when you teach this critical race theory, you're going to be teaching our children to hate America.

What's that all about?

- The reality is that America was built and continues to be built on certain myths that have to be dismantled.

- Absolutely.

- And so the thought of the myth being dismantled and actually perhaps for the first time an accurate history being given, has some folks scared.

I mean, real scared.

- Yeah.

- And, you know, I think about what happened in Charlottesville a few years back when folks were saying, "you're not going to replace us."

There's this notion that we can't have an honest conversation about the good, the bad, the ugly and the indifferent and still be America.

- Right.

- So I think that there is folk holding on, you know, they're holding on to something really that never was.

And so there's a fear that if the truth comes out, maybe, maybe there might be a level playing field, maybe there might be equity, maybe if we found out that the founding fathers, quote unquote, founding fathers, were really imperfect individuals who both believed in some form of God and at the same time were slaveholders... - Absolutely.

- Right?

I mean, I think Jesse Jackson said humanity, we are filled both with treasure and tragedy.

- Yeah.

And it's the American experiment.

But we happen to be the test lab.

- Absolutely.

- We were the test rats.

And I think being able to speak the truth to the masses and to be able to communicate that, yes, there's a history and yes, there was racism and yes, there was white supremacy and yes, people were beaten, whipped, and, you know, the question becomes, what don't you want your children to know?

- Right.

- And why?

Like, what's... What's the motive?

What's the motive behind not telling the truth about our collective history?

- Well, I think when you build a life that's built on a lie or a myth and there becomes the disentanglement of that myth and lie, I think there's a fear.

I think there's a fear.

And I've seen many folk who all of a sudden wake up one day and realize they're white.

They wake up one day and realize, you know, as opposed to just being American.

- Right.

- I think for the first time... - Or a human being.

- Or a human being.

I think for the first time there are folks who are saying, oh, I never realized I was white, never realized I had this privilege.

And that being exposed has a lot of folk upset or nervous about what their future looks like, or perhaps maybe some of them have anxiety that maybe if the dominant narrative, which is controlled predominantly by white folk, if that's changed or altered, that black and brown folk may do to them... - ..what they did to us.

Which is not the narrative, because our history is not one of violence.

- Not at all.

- It's not.

We're We Shall Overcome, Kumbaya.

We're going to pray for you and forgive you.

- We want freedom, justice and love.

- That's right.

But there has been propaganda and a narrative that has been, you know, laid on the American people and much of it, Greg, happens in the education system.

- Yes.

- Let's talk about that a little bit.

Let's talk about why the James Lawson Freedom School is important.

But share a little bit of your experience with even Allentown's school district and school districts on the whole.

- Well, you know, I mean, Pennsylvania is... Pennsylvania has some of the most horrific outcomes related to education.

We're like 48th, 49th in terms of graduation rates and in terms of literacy levels.

The Allentown School District in a recent survey by the Stanford Institute and University is in the seventh percentile.

That means that there's 97 other school districts, 97% of all the other school districts nationwide do better in terms of their outcomes than the Allentown school district.

That's criminal.

- That is criminal.

- Specifically, since the public education system, for the most part, is built upon, is built upon and funded by taxpayer dollars, which is part of the issue.

Pennsylvania has a very race-based, antiquated system for how we fund public education.

Your zip code is a direct determinant to the quality of education and the resources your children will have, which means you can literally walk across the street and that school district have working plumbing, flushing toilets, water fountains.

- iPads.

- iPads and so on, so etc.

And we've got school districts in the Lehigh Valley that have aqua centers and swimming pools and track.

- Yeah.

- And we've got some others that barely have water fountains.

- But that goes back to the long history of redlining, the economic oppression and disparities, making sure that black and brown people lived in certain communities and then not lending to those individuals.

- Right.

Well, let me just say this.

You know, Thomas Jefferson, who was one of the progenitors of the American education system, never envisioned black folk and poor folk or non-white-land-owning males to be participants in the educational system.

- So we are... We have been initiated and quote unquote integrated into a, really into what Dr. King said through the later part of his life, into a burning building.

Our children are in burning buildings that are underfunded, under-resourced, that are funded on the basis of the will of the state assembly.

And so in places like Harrisburg and Lancaster and York and Redding and Allentown and Philadelphia, our children barely have books, let alone computers.

And so the pandemic has exposed a lot of the racial toxicity and the disparities within our public education.

- Well, there's the old statement that says, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

- What happens if you ain't got no bootstraps?

- What if you got no boots?

- Right, right.

Right.

- You know, because economics will determine many times outcomes.

We know that poverty is directly connected to educational success and all types of other realities that individuals are dealing with.

Talk a little bit about why... Well, the James Lawson Freedom School, why it's important, why it's necessary and what's happening with the James Lawson Freedom School.

- We've got to create different educational models for our children.

- Yeah.

It is...

It is proven that all children can learn, but not all people can teach.

And so Freedom Schools really is a model that makes inseparable love and learning, head and heart, so that children show up in their full humanity, with their full selves, and that their instructors see them in their full humanity.

And so the pedagogy is really built on critical inquiry where we expect our children to ask questions.

We expect our children, who, by the way, are called scholars, because changing the language is also changing the game.

We expect our children to show up with their beautiful black and brown and white selves.

And we expect that their instructors, who, by the way, are called servant leader interns, together are going to co-create a space that is going to be nothing short of brilliant and magnificent.

And when I was exposed to this model, when I was a doctoral student, one of my colleagues in my doctoral cohort was a senior director for Marian Wright Edelman at the Children's Defense Fund and she put me on to this model.

I spent the week in Tennessee at the Alex Haley Farm.

I saw 4,000 to 5,000 black college age students being certified in the Freedom School model in the integrated reading curriculum - students from Penn State, students from Howard and Morehouse and Spellman and students from Harvard and Stanford, who were being trained, being equipped to go back into their communities and to breathe life into people that looked like them.

- That is so amazing.

- And when I saw that, I'm going to tell you, Phil, I was, I cried like a baby.

I sat in the middle of 4,000 black students as they were doing cheers and chants.

And because Marian Wright Edelman is who she is, I think at the time that I was there, Andrew Young, James Lawson, Dick Gregory, Michelle Alexander, Bryan Stevenson, they were there pouring back into the servant leader interns.

So this model is about creating an intergenerational learning laboratory where we teach our children how to love themselves and how to fall in love with learning.

- I love it.

I love it.

Because historically, they don't see themselves in history books.

The literature that is read in school is not theirs.

- Or the teachers that teach.

- 85% white female.

- Right.

Right.

So imagine, imagine, imagine getting up every morning and brushing your teeth and combing your hair and looking in the mirror and not seeing yourself.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Our children every day for the most part, our children every day for the most part, are going into schools, specifically in the Lehigh Valley, are going into schools where they are...

They are trying to find themselves and they can't locate themselves.

So there's a bit of an identity crisis.

And then the pipeline that's created because of a lack of funding really begins to focus in on their emotional behavior over their educational and social wellbeing.

And so they are isolated, they are relegated and they are made invisible.

They're made disposable.

They are a number for an IEP or special education funding.

- Which brings more dollars.

- Which brings more dollars.

Absolutely.

So this is what has to be interrupted.

If we do not fully fund, if we do not fully fund our children's education, we are undermining, we are undermining our national security.

We are undermining our financial operations.

We're undermining our ability to thrive and be really fully human.

You know, the Maasai tribe in South Africa, their greeting of the elders... - "How are the children?"

- "How are the children?"

"How are the children?"

They understand, they understand that if the children are not doing well, if the children aren't faring well, it doesn't make a difference how large a hut is.

Doesn't make a difference how long your driveway is.

Doesn't make a difference how, how grand your car is - if you're not investing in children, if the children are not doing well, the village is not well.

America's village is sick.

- It is very sick.

And what the challenge now is, so here we stand.

- Right.

- I think on the precipice of a new day, we're having discussions.

- I'm hoping.

- Yeah.

Well, I mean, even our forefathers hoped, right?

There's a whole expectation that something has to change and we may not be able to change the world, but we can change our neighborhood.

- Absolutely.

- And hopefully our neighborhood then has that residual effect on the places that they go and populate in themselves.

And that's what the James Lawson Freedom School, I believe, is doing because it's grabbing young minds, but it is doing something that is intergenerational.

There's an investment from college students who have made it through K through 12 and somehow or another gone off to college and have a mind to go back into the same community.

And so now the kids can see what they can be.

And that's very powerful.

Is that internal component as a part of the program that is necessary?

- Absolutely.

Parent involvement is an absolute necessity as a component of the Freedom School.

Intergenerational learning is another component, nutrition, health, mental wellbeing and civic engagement are other aspects of the Freedom School initiative, as well as a culturally relevant curriculum and pedagogy.

- That's so important.

- So, so, so in in the majority of public and even private educational institutions, education for the most part is passive.

You come into a classroom, you sit.

- Yeah.

- I assume you're a blank slate.

I teach.

I know everything.

You know nothing.

And I'm going to give you a set of facts, which may be true.

- We know it's not all truth.

- And your job, your job, if you so choose to do it, is to memorize those facts and to give them back to me verbatim.

- Yes.

- That's not learning.

- Right.

- That's memorization.

Those of us for the most part, that have advanced degrees, treble degrees, we know how the system works.

- Yes.

- We've gamed the system.

Give the professor back what the professor wants and you'll get back what you need.

That grade.

- That's right.

- That diploma.

Right?

That degree.

That's not learning.

So our educational system in America is built upon the banking system of education.

It assumes that students are coming into classrooms and they are empty of being.

- Yeah.

- That they are not social, emotional beings that can think, learn, love, and that your job as a teacher is to fill them.

- Yeah.

- Fill them with facts.

But if the facts are wrong then you are now disabling a proper view of self.

- Right.

- So you said a culturally relevant curriculum.

Talk a little bit about that and why you think it's important.

- Well, a culturally relevant curriculum is based upon seeing that scholar, that student in the totality of their being as a young person who might be black or Dominican or Puerto Rican or white, because the Freedom Schools are nonpartisan schools.

They're open to everybody.

- Wonderful.

- But we are not going to put our blackness on a shelf in order to accommodate the dominant narrative.

- Which happens essentially in public schools in the United States.

- The books, the books that the children are exposed to, the practices that they're exposed to...

So in the morning, there's a gathering time called Harambe.

Harambe is Swahili for let's pull together.

And then they go into their cheers and chants where we expect them to bring their full energy, all of themselves.

- That's beautiful.

- And we do it around the drum because the drum is a particular point in our history.

The drum calls the community together and it's intergenerational.

So it's K through 12 and they bring that energy into the room with cheers and chants.

There's a read-aloud guest who's somebody from the community.

They have an opportunity to ask them questions and then they go to their learning, their learning environments, their learning milieus, and it's one servant leader intern for every ten scholars.

So it's one to ten.

Imagine that.

- Yeah, that's beautiful.

- We want to overstand our children, we want to give them every resource available.

So they have, they've got iPads and they've got technology.

We feed them breakfast, we feed them a lunch, and then we do a reinforcing learning activity in the afternoon that helps to concretize whatever learning or book they read in the morning.

So it's quite, it's quite spectacular.

- Yeah.

- It really is.

- It's something to behold.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- I want to see it.

But back to the interns.

So are they from the community?

And what does the training look like for them?

- Right.

So we do an intense interview process.

We work with local universities.

In years past, we have pulled from all of the area colleges and universities - Moravian, Lehigh University, Muhlenberg College, Cedar Crest College, Kutztown University, East Stroudsburg, North Hampton Community College.

LCCC.

- OK. We provide them with some onboarding, some local training, and then we send them to Tennessee.

- Wow.

- This, of course, is pre pandemic.

- Sure, sure.

We arrange a lot of this, but we send them to Tennessee.

Now, it's important to note that while the majority of our servant leader interns are black and/or brown, that many of them grew up in white communities and went to white schools.

Some of them... - Wow.

- Some of them for the first time... - They're getting introduced.

- So they're going to Tennessee, to Clinton, Tennessee.

Ain't nothing in Clinton, Tennessee but the Alex Haley Farm, a Waffle House, a traffic light.

But that's the national training ground for the Children's Defense Fund.

- That's amazing.

- And they go there and I've seen, I've seen our young, I've seen our young black college students... - Yeah.

- Many of them from middle class homes.

And they have never been in an environment like that before.

So it's, Freedom Schools is not just transformational for the scholars.

- Yeah.

- It's transformational for the servant leader interns.

They go there for two weeks.

And they are fed, they are loved, they are equipped to learn the Freedom School model, which comes out of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer.

- Oh, is that right?

Wow.

- That's, that's the origins of Freedom School is that in 1964, Mississippi was the last state to grant the franchise of the vote to black folk and so college students descended to Mississippi to work as co-conspirators or allies with black folk to help black folk gain the right to vote.

And what to do with these kids that were not of voting age?

So many of them would gather, the school age but non yet voting age children, under poplar trees, in the basements of churches and community centers, and teach them about their constitutional rights.

Teach them that their history started long before the enslavement of the elders and the ancestors, that they come from kings and queens and scientists and architects and, you know, so...

So that kind of was the origins of Freedom Schools.

And then Marian Wright Edelman, who was the first black woman to actually pass the Mississippi Bar, to be admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she took that model in the nineties with her organization, the Children's Defense Fund, and really developed the curriculum through best practice research to what's now called Freedom Schools.

- That's amazing.

When you think about the impact that this will have generationally, when I heard of the idea, I was, of course, immediately interested to be able to have these in communities throughout the United States, but here in the Lehigh Valley, Greg, this is groundbreaking.

You know, I always appreciate you because you're always one step ahead of the curve.

Are there hopes for expansion of the Freedom Schools?

- Yes.

I'm glad you asked.

I mean, you know, so this is something that's got to be... Freedom Schools are for us, by us.

- Yes.

Yes.

- And we need everyone's support.

And folks have been very supportive, specifically, as you mentioned, in the day in which we are in.

And we are in a time of great, hopefully great awakening and a time of racial recognition.

- Sure, sure.

- And so, you know, it's our hope that we have Freedom Schools in every community in the Lehigh Valley, specifically in Allentown, in Bethlehem and in Easton, and that the school districts embrace them, that our religious communities of various faith traditions embrace them.

But to me, we can't have enough of these.

They are not meant to suppress or supplant public education.

They are meant to do what our education system at this moment has not done, dare I say, will never do - breathe life and love again into our children.

And so in those six weeks, the six weeks... Freedom Schools go Monday through Friday for six weeks.

The curriculum the first week is I can make a difference in myself.

So all the books, all the learning, all the literacy - is about, it starts with me.

- Starts with me.

- And we always say the first revolution is internal.

So changing the world starts with me looking at me and changing me.

I can make a difference in myself.

Week two - I can make a difference in my family.

Week three, I can make a difference in my school.

Week four, in my community.

Week five, in my nation.

Week six, in the world.

- That's good.

- I can change the world.

- Sure, sure.

- I can change the world, but I've got to be aware of who I am, whose I am.

And I've got to be aware that when I do show up in an environment, that environment is going to shift.

- And, you know, I hate to feel like, sometimes I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but I'm not.

Because our children have not been exposed to themselves and have not been exposed to their history, and many times it's not happening even in the household.

So then you go to the school and you're devoid of seeing yourself in the leadership, in the administration, and for a season in Easton, there were more black janitors than there were black teachers, and still are.

And so how does a child aspire to something beyond what they can visually see?

And it's an internal revelation that I don't think people understand.

And it is supported by white supremacy, and then facilitated through systemic institutional racism that continues to oppress.

Now, I'm not saying...

There's many of us who have broken that ceiling.

- Sure.

- And yourself, you have an advanced degree, you're a doctor, you're a pastor, you're president of your CDC.

But there are so many who get left behind because of the trap that has been set.

- It is hard to have a vision for your future... - Yeah.

- ..if you have no sight in who you are and where you are.

It's hard to be what you can't see.

- That's true.

Yeah.

- A vision for a better future comes from experiencing and seeing different things.

And, you know, I'm convinced that part of - not all of, but part of what's happening with some folks in our nation and even some folks in the Commonwealth in Pennsylvania, is folks have not traveled.

- That's true.

- They've not seen difference.

And when folks see something that's different, they think because it's different, it's deficient.

So, you know, somebody once said, I think it was Cornel West said that America is full of people who think that the United States is the best nation in the world and never have traveled outside of its borders.

- Absolutely.

- So, like, you know, I mean, we've got to see folks who are different.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And it's not until we can see difference and see ourselves in that difference that we can really see each other as human beings.

- Well, for example, as you have elevated up your education, this exposes you to different things, right?

You get to the James Lawson Freedom School, and I know you.

I know your heart.

It's like immediate.

You're like, we need to do this in Allentown.

Knowing all of the disparities that are happening in Allentown, you're big on education.

So you also have an academy as part of your CDC.

Can you talk?

We got three minutes.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

So the Resurrected Community Development Corporation is the fiduciary agent for the Resurrected Life Children's Academy.

And that's a star four Early Learning Center.

We provide infants, toddlers, preschoolers and students K through eight with an enriched full time environment.

We have about 110 children who are enrolled now, licensed by the Department of Public Welfare and Department of Human Services.

We're going to be expanding to 200 next year, 2022, when we break ground on our renovation project.

And then we also are, we just were awarded funding to do a pre-K couch program, which means we're going to be working with dozens of 4-year-olds, getting them ready for their kindergarten experience.

Of course, you know, the one thing, Phil, that really is...

So we're providing after school, before school, early learning.

And then we've got to send our babies off to buildings that often don't see them in their whole humanity.

And that's the heartbreaking thing.

And that's why we need to change the narrative for our children if we want to change it for our nation.

- That's so good, Greg.

I mean, you know, thinking about the grassroots work that you're doing, it's really a model for others to be able to see that the church is not confined to its four walls and that the community really needs to be the focus of our work to bring justice, equity, a level playing field, to uplift and empower people like our Christ does.

Right?

This is the mind and the heart of Jesus.

And so embedded in the gospel, right, is this idea of justice and equity and lifting people up.

It's amazing.

- The heart of the black prophetic religious tradition was always to see community.

and that which is sacred as inseparable.

- That's good.

Thank you, Reverend Dr. Greg Edwards, for being here today.

It's always a pleasure to have you.

On behalf of everyone here at PBS39, we'd really like to thank you for taking time to participate in this Courageous Conversation.

I realize sometimes it can make you uncomfortable, but these are the kind of conversations that can challenge us to transcend our past.

Thank you again.

We'll see you next time.

Keeping being courageous.