The Freedom School was located in Colorado, United States, offering a series of lectures by libertarian theorist Robert LeFevre from 1957 to 1968. LeFevre extended this work to the related Rampart College, an unaccredited four-year school, in 1963. Both shared the same campus. In 1965, a flood devastated the campus, and the school and college were moved to Santa Ana, California, where they lasted until at late 1975. They were succeeded by the Rampart Institute. LeFevre stepped down as president in 1973, succeeded by Sy Leon. A new Freedom School was established in January 2010 to carry on in the LeFevre tradition.
The Freedom School was also the name of the fictional school for runaway youth depicted in the 1971 film Billy Jack and the 1974 sequel The Trial of Billy Jack.
Freedom Schools were sometimes used for alternative schools set up by civil rights activists in the southern United States in opposition to the racial segregation in public schools which was mandated at the time by Jim Crow laws.
Famous quotes containing the words freedom and/or school:
“I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“It’s a rare parent who can see his or her child clearly and objectively. At a school board meeting I attended . . . the only definition of a gifted child on which everyone in the audience could agree was “mine.””
—Jane Adams (20th century)