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Spell Freedom
The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement
By Elaine Weiss
Read by Robin Miles
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About the Book
“Through elegant writing, masterful storytelling, and prodigious research, Weiss takes us on a journey for freedom.” —Carol Anderson, New York Times bestselling author
The acclaimed author of the “stirring, definitive, and engrossing” (NPR) The Woman’s Hour returns with the story of four activists whose audacious plan to restore voting rights to Black Americans laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.
In the summer of 1954, educator Septima Clark and small businessman Esau Jenkins traveled to rural Tennessee’s Highlander Folk School, an interracial training center for social change founded by Myles Horton, a white southerner with roots in the labor movement. There, the trio united behind a shared mission: preparing Black southerners to pass the daunting Jim Crow era voter registration literacy tests that were designed to disenfranchise them.
Risking their lives and livelihoods, they created the underground Citizenship Schools project, preparing Black southerners to pass the voter registration literacy tests and have a voice in their nation’s democracy. By the time the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, over nine hundred citizenship school classes had been established—often in secret locations—across the south, quietly educating tens of thousands of Black citizens to read and write, demand their civil rights, and vote. The program nurtured a generation of activists—many of them women—trained in community organizing, political action, and tactics of resistance, who became the grassroots foundation of the Civil Rights Movement.
In the vein of Hidden Figures and Devil in the Grove, Spell Freedom is the exhilarating story of ordinary citizens confronting injustice with courage and creativity, offering a revealing narrative “that illuminates not only the past but also a path forward” (Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize winner).
The acclaimed author of the “stirring, definitive, and engrossing” (NPR) The Woman’s Hour returns with the story of four activists whose audacious plan to restore voting rights to Black Americans laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.
In the summer of 1954, educator Septima Clark and small businessman Esau Jenkins traveled to rural Tennessee’s Highlander Folk School, an interracial training center for social change founded by Myles Horton, a white southerner with roots in the labor movement. There, the trio united behind a shared mission: preparing Black southerners to pass the daunting Jim Crow era voter registration literacy tests that were designed to disenfranchise them.
Risking their lives and livelihoods, they created the underground Citizenship Schools project, preparing Black southerners to pass the voter registration literacy tests and have a voice in their nation’s democracy. By the time the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, over nine hundred citizenship school classes had been established—often in secret locations—across the south, quietly educating tens of thousands of Black citizens to read and write, demand their civil rights, and vote. The program nurtured a generation of activists—many of them women—trained in community organizing, political action, and tactics of resistance, who became the grassroots foundation of the Civil Rights Movement.
In the vein of Hidden Figures and Devil in the Grove, Spell Freedom is the exhilarating story of ordinary citizens confronting injustice with courage and creativity, offering a revealing narrative “that illuminates not only the past but also a path forward” (Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize winner).
Reading Group Guide
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Reading Group Guide – Spell Freedom
Topics & Questions for Discussion
Did reading Spell Freedom change your perception or understanding of the Civil Rights Movement in any way? Did any other aspects of the history chronicled in Spell Freedom surprise you?
The central figures in Spell Freedom are a school teacher (Septima Clark), a small businessman (Esau Jenkins), a beautician (Bernice Robinson), and a "radical hillbilly" educator (Myles Horton). They are quite ordinary, middle-aged citizens who put their lives on hold, took great risks, and faced danger to lead their neighbors toward freedom. Do you think you'd be willing to do this for a cause you believed important?
Did you have a favorite person in the Spell Freedom story?
Spell Freedom is filled with historical accounts of people--sharecroppers, laborers, teachers, domestic workers--taking courageous action, willing to risk their lives and livelihoods to regain their right to vote. What does the right to vote mean to you? What would you be willing to do to protect it?
Spell Freedom chronicles the civil rights movement from various angles, including the powerful opposition it faced, especially the multi-level "massive resistance" of the southern states: from state sovereignty commissions and investigations to White Citizen Councils and the KuKlux Klan. What was your reaction to these efforts to thwart the struggle for equal rights and punish those advocating for democracy?
Do you think many Americans take their right to vote for granted? Do you think citizens of a democracy have a responsibility to vote--as Septima Clark taught in the Citizenship Schools? Should voting be mandatory, as it is in some other democratic nations?
Septima Clark and her Citizenship School colleagues worked for years to cultivate community leaders across the south--most of them of modest means and education-- empowering them to organize their neighbors in the fight for justice. What are the qualities of a community leader?
Dr. King called Mrs Clark "Mother of the Movement" but she has not received the attention given to other movement leaders. Why do you think her legacy has (until now) been neglected. And why do you think the Citizenship Schools program, which played such an important role in building the movement, is not better known?
One of the threads in Spell Freedom is the role of women as organizers and visionaries in the civil rights movement, and their frustration in the ways they were treated: their work minimized and their opinions ignored. Do you think this situation for women has improved in the past 70 years?
Spell Freedom charts the role of music in the civil rights movement, and traces the evolution of "We Shall Overcome" from its origins at Highlander and use in the Citizenship Schools to become the anthem of the movement. Why do you think group singing was so important, and what about that song was inspirational?
The citizenship schools transformed lives by teaching poor and unlettered people how to read and write in order to register to vote. But the classes also taught them about their constitutional rights, what democracy means, and how government works. Could a modern version of citizenship schools be useful today?
Do you think there is a role for civic education--in schools, colleges, and in community settings-- today?
Topics & Questions for Discussion
Did reading Spell Freedom change your perception or understanding of the Civil Rights Movement in any way? Did any other aspects of the history chronicled in Spell Freedom surprise you?
The central figures in Spell Freedom are a school teacher (Septima Clark), a small businessman (Esau Jenkins), a beautician (Bernice Robinson), and a "radical hillbilly" educator (Myles Horton). They are quite ordinary, middle-aged citizens who put their lives on hold, took great risks, and faced danger to lead their neighbors toward freedom. Do you think you'd be willing to do this for a cause you believed important?
Did you have a favorite person in the Spell Freedom story?
Spell Freedom is filled with historical accounts of people--sharecroppers, laborers, teachers, domestic workers--taking courageous action, willing to risk their lives and livelihoods to regain their right to vote. What does the right to vote mean to you? What would you be willing to do to protect it?
Spell Freedom chronicles the civil rights movement from various angles, including the powerful opposition it faced, especially the multi-level "massive resistance" of the southern states: from state sovereignty commissions and investigations to White Citizen Councils and the KuKlux Klan. What was your reaction to these efforts to thwart the struggle for equal rights and punish those advocating for democracy?
Do you think many Americans take their right to vote for granted? Do you think citizens of a democracy have a responsibility to vote--as Septima Clark taught in the Citizenship Schools? Should voting be mandatory, as it is in some other democratic nations?
Septima Clark and her Citizenship School colleagues worked for years to cultivate community leaders across the south--most of them of modest means and education-- empowering them to organize their neighbors in the fight for justice. What are the qualities of a community leader?
Dr. King called Mrs Clark "Mother of the Movement" but she has not received the attention given to other movement leaders. Why do you think her legacy has (until now) been neglected. And why do you think the Citizenship Schools program, which played such an important role in building the movement, is not better known?
One of the threads in Spell Freedom is the role of women as organizers and visionaries in the civil rights movement, and their frustration in the ways they were treated: their work minimized and their opinions ignored. Do you think this situation for women has improved in the past 70 years?
Spell Freedom charts the role of music in the civil rights movement, and traces the evolution of "We Shall Overcome" from its origins at Highlander and use in the Citizenship Schools to become the anthem of the movement. Why do you think group singing was so important, and what about that song was inspirational?
The citizenship schools transformed lives by teaching poor and unlettered people how to read and write in order to register to vote. But the classes also taught them about their constitutional rights, what democracy means, and how government works. Could a modern version of citizenship schools be useful today?
Do you think there is a role for civic education--in schools, colleges, and in community settings-- today?
About the Author
Photograph by Nina Subin
Elaine Weiss is an award-winning journalist, author, and public speaker. In addition to Spell Freedom, she is the author of Fruits of Victory: The Woman’s Land Army of the Great War; and The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. Elaine lives with her husband in Baltimore, Maryland. Find out more at ElaineWeiss.com.
About the Reader
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio (March 4, 2025)
- Runtime: 15 hours and 29 minutes
- ISBN13: 9781797190815
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