Under the Tree: A Seminar on Freedom with Bill Ayers

It takes a lot to change the world, and because we live day-by-day immersed in what is—the world as such—imagining a landscape much different from what’s immediately before us requires a combination of some things: seeds, surely, desire, yes, effort, of course, always effort, idealism and romance, maybe, necessity and desperation at times, and a vision of dazzling possibilities at other times. Occasionally what’s required is the willful enthusiasm to dance out on a limb—and, of course, we all do better when we’re holding hands with others out on that limb. So I come back to our steady watchword: Organize!I’m joined by three extraordinary organizers and activists, Denzel Burke, Destine Phillips, and Tommy Hagan, leaders of the  R.E.A.L. Youth Initiative. R.E.A.L. was founded in 2018 at an Illinois juvenile prison where both Denzel and Destine were incarcerated. They had discussed the idea of launching a program that organizes and builds power with people like themselves who’ve been through the criminal/legal system. They envisioned an organization run and directed by those who have experienced and understand what it’s like to have been in the streets and faced periods of incarceration, but they also envisioned this organization working towards the dismantling of conditions like poverty and the lack of social support that lead to violence, and incarceration. You can find them on Instagram @realyouthinitiative or online at realyouthinitiative.com.

A border can be “a story of identity” or “a wound…in the landscape.” It is sometimes a place to be feared, and other times a place to be honored. Borders can, of course, be metaphors: the boundary between boy and man, or girl and woman; the thin line between sanity and madness; the final frontier between life and death. In any case, a border, as the journalist James Crawford writes, “is never simply a line, a marker, a wall, an edge. First, it is an idea.” I’m joined in conversation with Susan Mills, an immigration attorney whose law practice for over two decades focused on preparing asylum cases for thousands of immigrants from Central America, with a particular focus on unaccompanied teenagers. We go from borders to dreams and back again: “Wherever there are borders,” James Crawford says, “that’s where you are going to find the most concentrated injustice.”

Stephanie Skora is the force behind the Girl, I Guess Progressive Voter Guide. She's a self-proclaimed 'Jewish, queer, trans, nerd' dedicated to helping members of the community navigate confusing ballot races and identify the most progressive candidates. A grouchy Jewish trans dyke, and an anarchist with a political science degree – Stephanie is as wise and witty a radical organizer as you’ll ever meet. But in her humility she urges us all to consult with other progressive/radical organizers in our communities, especially queer, trans, Black, and Brown folks because the guide is currently an individual effort, and, as she reminds us, “I might be a Virgo smartypants know-it-all with a lot of opinions, but I’m far from infallible!”

We travel to the Illinois Parole Board to stand in solidarity with a couple of my students seeking clemency or commutation or a pardon from Governor Pritzger, and to support our friend and colleague Marshan Allen as he asks to have his conviction erased so that he can practice law when he finishes law school. Since coming home after 24-years in prison, Marshan Allen earned his Bachelor's Degree from Northeastern Illinois University, got married, and launched a career as a national leader for criminal/legal reform. He’s currently the Vice President of Advocacy and External Partnerships at Represent Justice, a national advocacy organization, serves on the boards of Boards of Restore Justice and the Center for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, and is an active member of the Incarcerated Children’s Advocacy Network (ICAN). He’s a first year student at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

We’re joined in conversation with the philosopher, youth organizer, and innovative educator Theodore Richards at the legendary destination bookstore 57th Street Books in Hyde Park, Chicago. He and I have shared the mic at half a dozen book talks over the years, and today our focus is on his latest book, Reimagining the Classroom: Creating New Learning Spaces and Connecting with the World, an inspirational text as well as a practical guide with a wealth of down-to-earth ideas for teachers and parents. Theodore Richards provides a framework for youth to see themselves as valuable people as well as people of values, people who can be creators, not consumers, and makers rather than victims of history.

This is our last Episode for 2022—we look forward to being back in mid-January. For this Special Episode, we’re joined in conversation with the legendary activist and organizer Helen Shiller at the 57th Street Bookstore in Hyde Park, Chicago. In her new autobiography, Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win, Shiller captures a sense of what it means to engage in decades of justice work from anti-war and international solidarity to anti-racist organizing in Uptown, from the fight for affordable housing and against police violence to a 24-year career as an elected city councilor. With Justice and Freedom on our minds, Helen Shiller exemplifies the potential of an insider/outsider approach to social change. We wish you and your Beloveds a year of joy, justice, peace and love. 

Authentic learning requires free thought—curiosity, inquiry, imagination, initiative, problem-posing, question-asking. Learning is undermined when students are inspected, spied upon, regulated, appraised, censured, measured, registered, counted, admonished, checked off, prevented, and sermonized. In this episode, we visit a unique college commencement ceremony—filled with joy and pain—and explore with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project and University Without Walls what it means to stay all the way human inside an institution built on dehumanization, and to face fully the contradiction of teaching for freedom in spaces that demand passivity and obedience.

An authentic education rests on the twin pillars of enlightenment and liberation—it’s about opening doors, opening minds, and opening possibilities; the principal message to students is straight forward: you can explore, interrogate, and understand your world, and, working together, you can change it. Schooling is too often about judging and sorting students into a hierarchy of winners and losers. We explore this fundamental contradiction with the acclaimed activist and teacher Brian Jones, the Director of the New York Public Library’s Center for Educators and Schools, and author of The Tuskegee Student Uprising: A History.

We are a few days away from election day across the country and many of us here in Chicago are looking at our mail-in or early ballots, and are overwhelmed with the incredible number of offices, ballot measures, and judges about whom we are expected to make informed decisions.So who are all these people on the ballot, and does it even matter who we vote for anymore? Let’s talk about it!

Americans want to think of ourselves as peace-loving people, but the facts contradict the myth: US military bases stretch around the globe; nuclear weapons poised to strike from flying fortresses circle the earth; the US is the top global arms dealer as well as Number One in the world in terms of military spending; and we live in a permanent war economy with the largest corporate welfare program in world history—hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars flowing into private companies, almost half going to no-bid contracts with Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup Grumman. The war in Ukraine has been a boon to war-mongers and war-profiteers everywhere, and it could have been avoided. We’re joined in conversation with Medea Benjamin, a leading antiwar activist, and author of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict. BONUS!Stay tuned, because we will shortly drop a brief, bonus episode this week — a voting guide of sorts, and a conversation with Maya Dukmasova and Charles Preston of Injustice Watch, a different kind of newsroom with a focus on serious, sustained inquiry, and journalism as an educational project—you know, the Fourth (or Fifth) Estate.