Sunflower County Freedom Project

Coming Soon... "The Fruit of Our Labor"

The year is 1965, and the Evans family faces a pile of troubles - racism, poverty, and Jim Crow – as most African Americans in the South do. Plus, as their children grow up, they grow restless; Jessie has had enough of segregation. She wants to join the Freedom Riders. What will happen to her as she joins the Civil Rights Movement? What will happen to any of the marchers, and to the nation?

Flash forward thirty-five years, to the year 2000. The Tylers are also an African-American family, hardly different from any other in their time period. What is life like for them? Have they made good on the labor of the Civil Rights movement? Has the seed planted by people like Jessie grown into a beautiful tree? Or has it withered up to die –and what can we do to revive it? “The Fruit of Our Labor” addresses these questions and more in an original play, and you are invited to see it.

“The Fruit of Our Labor” will be performed by the Sunflower County Freedom Troupe at the LEAD Center on Sunday, March 16, 2008. Doors open at 5:30 pm for tours, good seats, and refreshments. Showtime is 6 pm, and admission is free to the public. Check out our trailer on YouTube or here!

Going to the Spelling Bee!!!

My name is Fredrick Hannah and I am a 2nd year in the Sunflower County Freedom Project. I am writing to talk about the spelling bee that I am attending. To me being in the spelling bee is a great accomplishment. I have received a lot of recognition from my peers and from my parents. They have given me confidence to go out there and spell my heart out! All joking aside, this is my second spelling bee and I am proud to have made it this far. The first one I’ve been in was about 3 years ago at Carver Elementary. I got out on a word I should’ve known. Growing up I was always fond of spelling and I enjoyed the spelling tests while others despised it. I often challenge myself to learning and spelling new words. That way I will always be prepared when teachers stress about being in the eighth grade, and that we should know words on a higher reading level. I try though. This week it will be hectic. I have to study twice as hard and three times as long. I don’t have a coach or anything but I think I stand a good shot in this regional spelling bee. I will be looking forward to going and participating in the spelling bee and I hope that it will make my peers proud. Maybe I could go the National Spelling bee in Washington. That would be so amazing that a kid from Indianola, Ms that goes to Inverness participated in all parts of the spelling bee. I thought I wasn't going to make it this far. Well, I guess spelling has always been a favorite subject of mine. Stay tuned for more spelling bee updates.

Never Let You Down: The Black Experience is Upon Us

It's rare as a staff member that I get the chance to post a blog, but I guess when opportunity presents itself, you have to take it. So here's my chance. 
    There have been instances in sports where a supremely confident team member will make not just a prediction, but a guaranteed victory. Tonight, on the eve of the Black Experience program, I'm posting the blog to do the same.  This isn't based on the arrogance of a program employee or the bias of a teacher who loves their students, it's strictly from the sight, observation, witnessing of a great phenomena.  Basically, the students made me a believer. When we first started talking about this months ago, it was just an idea and I wasn't sure if it would all work out. Luckily, there was a great team of creative geniuses, dynamic directors, media magicians, and student superheroes who committed themselves to making this program a success. While there have been struggles, missed and late practices, disappointments, the core of the group was solid and truly committed because at some point they saw this program as their own program, not something somebody else wanted to do. It was something they felt they needed to take care of and make great because it was theirs. 

   So therefore, I can predict a success, because it is already a success. After the final practice this evening, the students started clapping at the end, because they knew they were ready. Whether or not anybody shows up, the Black Experience program is already a victory, because I can guarantee that tomorrow, there will be a group of young people who will have shown the community, other young people, and most importantly themselves that students can get together and lead each other to create amazingly positive and powerful original programs.  It's like the theme song of the program, "One thing I've found, One thing I've found, is that you'll never let me down." Come tomorrow, there won't be a single person who will be let down after the Black Experience program has concluded. 

    So at 2:30pm tomorrow, know that great things are happening. For those of you who will be able to make it, be ready for a great experience.  For those of you who can't, we definitely understand, so we will be making a post-Black Experience blog with comments from students and visitors. We also hope to successfully video tape the program and then upload it to google video and our blog next week.  Thanks for your support in helping us maintain a great program for these amazing students. 

Let's make it happen,

--Greg McCoy
SCFP Program Coordinator

 

Soweto Extravaganza

    Beautiful singing, unusual but interesting dancing, bright colors, and African Garments were all seen at the wonderful performance of the Soweto Gospel Choir from South Africa. There were songs that the audience knew and songs that the audience tried to learn but, all were beautiful songs. When the show first started one of the women singers opened up with a wonderful introduction which she recited exceptionally well in English. After the splendid introduction they started a song that had something to do with the devil, using hand gestures to tell when they refered to the devil. In the second performance one of the hand drummers came out beating his drum ridiculously. All of a sudden two male dancers and a woman dancer came out doing African heritage dances. Then, the rest of the choir came out with more exhilarating  outfits with scarfs that matched knotted around their heads. The second set of songs were songs that the audience knew.After the last song the audience was unwilling to just get up and leave the building.Since the choir saw that the audience wanted more they gave the audience  an encore. One thing that I really  loved was when the choir song the South African national anthem. They have been free and a democracy for 10 years. It was amazing. Last but not least the song Oh Happy Day and that just made the ending wonderful. If I could see them everyday that would be great and I would never get tired of the Soweto Extravaganza!!

Invitation to Our Play

Click on the picture to enlarge it. Also, I would like to give thanks to Shaquille Leflore, third year in the Freedom Project and Juwan Wilson, second - year in the Freedom Project for making the invitation.

Martin Luther King Day

    As we all know January 16, 2006 was a very important date. It was the day that we celebrated a brave and determined man Dr.Martin Luther King. A number of Freedom School students and staff members went to Greenville,Mississippi to help pick up trash.We were there helping Habitat for Humanity. Though it might not seem like much, it really helped many people. Because we were considerate enough to pick up other people's  trash five families will have homes.Maybe if we didn't help there would still be disgusting things like dead cats, beer bottles, nasty diapers, and disgusting paper with weird things on them. There are many people who  need somewhere to live because their homes were damaged or aren't livable. So, now they will have somewhere that really feels like home.
                                                                                                                                                        Sincerely,
                                                                                                                       Shamira Weeks
                                                                                                                   Blogmaster Apprentice                                                 

Girls Lock-In 2005

Hi, this is Shamira, assistant blogmaster. The Girls Lock-In was great this year. This was my first lock-in ever. We played a lot of fun games like Murder and watched wonderful movies like The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. Murder is played by first choosing a "killer." After the "killer" is chosen, he or she "kills" people by winking at people. The object of the game is guess who the killer is before he or she kills you. Laquita Minton was the best killer. There was one painful game we played at the lock-in and that was the pillow fight. It was extremely painful but fun at the same time. Ms. Johansen, Mr. McCoy, and Mr. Myers  definitely won the pillow fight, but I want to let you know the only reason they won was because they kept turning off lights and attacking. Also, at the Girls Lock-In, we ate waffles for dinner  packed with chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, and regular syrup. As you can figure that made us very hyper and we just had to start the pillow fight until we gained victory even though we never did, because we were extremely goofy and crazy. This is how our Girls Lock-In of 2005 went because we had the crunkest and loving girls ever. Nobody was arguing or fighting over silly things. The reason why we have girl lock-ins is to get girls  closer together so that they will become friends.