Bennettsville native Marian Wright Edelman always vowed to “Leave no child behind.”
It was what led her to found the Children’s Defense Fund, which now 50 years later continues to address racial injustice and economic equality.
The Children’s Defense Fund grew out of the Civil Rights Movement under the leadership of Edelman.
Since its inception in 1973, the Children’s Defense Fund has worked to challenge this country to improve policies and programs for children.
Over the years, we have become known for careful
Those results can find their basis in the summer enrichment programs called Freedom Schools.
Edelman has said the inspiration came from her work as a civil rights attorney during the Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964.
This year, CDF will celebrate 50 years overall. It started in Bennettsville with the Freedom Schools in 1990s.
The late Olive Wright Covington, older sister of Edelman, helped to lay the foundation for the flagship CDF Freedom Schools program.
In a column written by Edelman, she said Covington helped design the vision for the new generation of Freedom Schools programming that would serve children’s needs.
The church parsonage in Bennettsville where Edelman was born and raised became the incubator and curriculum laboratory for the CDF Freedom Schools pilot program. Marlboro County along with Kansas City, Missouri, and seven other sponsors, hosted the first official CDF Freedom Schools sites in the summer of 1995.
Recently, the Herald-Advocate conducted a roundtable interview with several teachers and leaders who participated with CDF from its beginnings and current staff members.
They include Shaquite Pegues, Marion David, from the beginning and was the director of the office, Jennifer Liles, Willie Mae Cain, Julia Cain Johnakin, Mae Woods, Mary Fennell, Robin Sally, and Dasla Benjamin.
Robin Sally, a national director of curriculum and instruction, said the Freedom Schools and CDF started piloting everything people know today here in Bennettsville.
“Everything we see on the national level was started here in Bennettsville,” she said.
Johnakin who served as a teacher in the program and is now a volunteer said it was an honor being asked to work in the program.
“I had been teaching for years,” she said. “The training they gave us took it beyond what we know. They push us to that level of thinking about what children can do. The program help us to see that this was possible here in Marlboro.”
Woods who also was a teacher enjoyed the strategies and ideas that she was able to implement in the classroom.
“It was things I was able to go to the classroom at the beginning of the next school year and implement myself,” she said.
Johnakin added it made them think about the children being facilitators of learning rather than just giving them everything.
“It was collaborative learning. We were not using those kinds of models,” she said.
Woods felt one of the strong parts of Freedom Schools was the parenting program. “The participation in the parenting program then compared to now was different,” she said. It was overwhelming back then. They (Parents) were excited and wanted to know when the next program was. It was a strong parenting piece.”
Sally said impacted the entire community and not just the children.
Shaquite Pegues, director of the Ella Baker Leadership Development, said the official Freedom Schools program that everyone knows about on the national level started in 1995 in Bennettsville.
Pegues was a scholar in the program. While in college, she worked in the program and became a servant leader intern.
“It solidified my desire to be a teacher,” said Pegues, who initially wanted to be a lawyer. “I was able to just excel because of all of the experience and the training that I received in the Freedom Schools program.”
Later, she became a site coordinator. Then, she joined the staff and as a result of that served as the project director and then executive director.
Pegues has also oversaw the National Ella Baker trainers, who are the young adults who trained our partners on our program model.
Recently, she was promoted to the managing director of the National CDF schools program.
“I am a testament to the program model,” she said. “We talked about that you grow your own leadership and you go through the pipeline and so at every stage of your life, there is something for you to be able to do in the Freedom Schools program model that helps you to develop and become a leader.”
One of the hallmarks of Freedom Schools was literacy.
Every child in the program got to select a book to take home each week of the program to add to their home libraries.
At the end of the program, the sponsoring organization (school district, church, or community center) got to keep a set of books.
David said for children, it was the first time that they were seeing themselves in a book. “We had to work really hard to find the books,” she said.
In the books, the child character was positive and was the hero of the book.
Woods shared about her daughter Mya, who benefited greatly from the program.
She went through the ranks of the program herself as a student, as an SLI, and project director.
Woods’ daughter became a teacher and has established a summer program in Florence District one.
“I attribute the CDF program to the growth of her,” Woods said. “She went from a teacher in a classroom to a math coach and now she’s serving as an assistant principal and she’s doing some of the same things that she was talking about that she learned from the same women around this table that she’s instilling in some of the students at her school.”
Currently, Dasla Benjamin is the site coordinator at Wallace Elementary Middle School for the CDF 21st century afterschool program. There are also programs at Clio Elementary and Blenheim Middle School of Discovery.
Benjamin spoke at a national training for Executive Directors and project directors on the panel for after-school programs.
She noted parents were very excited about the after-school program, especially grandparents. In the program, there are 105 students who helped with homework and other activities with seven educators each afternoon in the cafeteria.
Benjamin shared that with the MAP Test, they had 70 out of 105 students go up from September to December in their scores.
For more information about the Children’s Defense Fund, visit childrensdefense.org.