When Antoinette MaGee was pregnant she remembers hearing about the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools® program. And once she learned more about it, and visited a site, she was sold. “I knew I wanted my baby to be in the program,” she said. “I used to say ‘Please, Paula just stay around long enough so that I can put my baby in the program.”
Courtney Linsey’s grandfather was a bishop for the Christian Episcopal Methodist Church, went to high school with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was once even arrested with him for civil disobedience during one of King’s many protests against segregation during the Civil Rights Movement.
It was Vicki Olivares’ third year in college at Cal State Dominguez Hills when a counselor asked if she was looking for a summer job working with kids. She said yes, thinking it would be an easy job watching children play. But she quickly realized it was so much more.
In college, Alfreca Howard’s major was Africana Studies. Since then she has fully embraced her culture and does everything she can to make sure her 11-year-old son, Ausar, knows and understands Black history. So when she came across a literacy and cultural enrichment program that kept the legacy of civil rights leader and human rights activist Ella Baker alive, she knew her son had to be a part of it.
