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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Time now for StoryCorps. Sixty years ago, civil rights groups organized summer schools for African American kids across Mississippi. These Freedom Schools were held in churches, barns and backyards. They covered everything from poetry to voting rights. Today, we hear from six Freedom School students, now in their 70s.
THERESIA CLARK-BANKS: My regular classes, you never was allowed to just express yourself. I could never have gone to my English class in school and said that I saw the KKK ride down the street with their hoods on, trying to run my little brother off the highway.
JULIA CLARK-WARD: Yeah, and, you know, Dad had a third-grade education. He couldn't read and write, but he could listen.
CLARK-BANKS: Yeah.
CLARK-WARD: It gave him joy to see us learning. He was very receptive to whatever I wanted to tell him. Sometimes, it might be a poem. I remember they was doing this play called "Waiting For Godot," and he told me, who is this Godot fella? I said, I don't know, but it sounds like it's fun.
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STEPHANIE HOZE: That was the first time we really interacted with white people. We had never seen white folks that were caring for us because every white person we saw wasn't putting out a hand.
DEBORAH CARR: Wasn't friendly.
HOZE: They would - get back, boy. Get off the sidewalk.
CARR: Right, and my mom worked in a Caucasian home. She cleaned, and she cooked. They'd get her and bring her back home, and when I'd run out there to meet her, she'd be saying, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. And it just irritated me. Why are you doing that? She's younger than you. But at Freedom School, the teacher would say, you don't have to say, yes, sir to me. You don't have to do it. My name is Dick. Don't do that.
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GLENDA FUNCHESS: It was like a turning point for us.
DON DENARD: That's right. There was a spirit about the Freedom Schools that was just palpable.
FUNCHESS: Right. They wanted to desegregate places like the zoo and the library.
DENARD: Yeah. Those are the things we were concerned about - being able to sit downstairs at the Saenger Theater and have access to all that candy. I remember we generated some courage. After Freedom School one day, we decided, white water fountain, colored water fountain - we were going to deal with that. So we posted lookouts. We all went and drank from that cool white water fountain. We'd just fill ourselves up, knowing that it could be dangerous. We were thinking that we have rights, but we knew that those rights were being violated. And that water tasted so sweet. It was so cool. Riding home, we were just proud of ourselves. Freedom School so emboldened us and gave us a sense of what was possible.
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MARTIN: That was Don Denard, Glenda Funchess, Deborah Carr, Stephanie Hoze, Theresia Clark-Banks and Julia Clark-Ward. They all spoke with StoryCorps in Hattiesburg, Miss. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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