Spell Freedom
The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement
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From Elaine Weiss,
author of The Woman’s Hour.
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From author Elaine Weiss
Spell Freedom:
The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement
Continuing my exploration of untold stories in American history. In this book I take readers deep into the mid 20th Century civil rights movement, offering a new perspective on events – from the grassroots up – and introducing a new cadre of American heroines and heroes, Black and white, whose names may not be familiar, but whose courage changed our nation.
Spell Freedom is a powerful, intimate, and enlightening book that tells the remarkable story of how a group of educators and their allies worked together to advance Black citizenship rights in the Jim Crow South. While mainstream narratives on the civil rights movement tend to focus on well-known and visible leaders, this book sheds new light on some of the ordinary people behind the scenes who led quietly – and effectively – with great courage and deep conviction in the face of adversity. This beautifully written book is a must read for anyone interested in race, history, politics and education.
– Keisha N. Blain, co-editor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls
They were an unlikely team of disruptors: Septima Clark, a grandmotherly Black South Carolina school teacher; Esau Jenkins, a striving Sea Island businessman; Bernice Robinson, a vivacious Charleston beautician; and Myles Horton, a white Tennessean who called himself a “radical hillbilly.” In the summer of 1954 they met at the Highlander Folk School, an interracial training center for social change founded by Horton, and united behind a shared mission: preparing Black southerners to pass the literacy test that was a prerequisite to registering to vote – and designed to disenfranchise them.
Working together, Clark – whom Dr. King would later call “Mother of the Movement” – Jenkins, Robinson and Horton created the Citizenship Schools project, starting with a single secret classroom hidden in the back of a rural grocery store. By the time the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, over 900 citizenship schools had been established in eleven southern states, quietly preparing tens of thousands of Black citizens to read and write, demand their rights – and vote. The program empowered Black southerners, making them “ready from within” for the struggle ahead, while nurturing a generation of local leaders – a majority of them women – who went on to become the organizational backbone of the Civil Rights Movement.
Spell Freedom plunges readers into the heart of the burgeoning movement, offering a visceral and intimate story of ordinary citizens confronting injustice with courage and creativity, attempting to repair American democracy with their own hands.
BOOK AWARDS
Praise for Spell Freedom
“Spell Freedom draws us in with lucid prose, filling in the holes of American history with the work of Septima Clark and Bernice Robinson and their compatriots, who deftly wielded reading and writing as their weapons of choice in the 20th century fight for first class citizenship for all.”
“A powerful, intimate, and enlightening book that tells the remarkable story of how a group of educators and their allies worked together to advance Black citizenship rights in the Jim Crow South. While mainstream narratives on the civil rights movement tend to focus on well-known and visible leaders, this book sheds new light on some of the ordinary people behind the scenes who led quietly–and effectively–with great courage and deep conviction in the face of adversity. This beautifully written book is a must read for anyone interested in race, history, politics, and education.”
“Spell Freedom ennobles the humblest foot soldiers of the civil rights movement. Septima Clark, daughter of a slave, taught sharecroppers to sign their names and become citizens. Highlander Folk Center lifted courage with music and sacrifice. Elaine Weiss captures their alliance making history.”
“Through elegant writing, masterful storytelling, and prodigious research, Weiss takes us on a journey for freedom and how that quest for liberation was grounded in the power of grassroots civic education and a belief in the people and democracy. Trials, troubles, triumphs, and tears are the mile markers on this engaging tale about the Highlander Folk School and those who willed it into being right at the very moment when it was needed.”
“A beautifully crafted and dramatic tale that testifies to the resilience of America’s dreamers and freedom fighters. How did so many ordinary people find the courage to stand up for their rights? How did they organize? How did they overcome apathy and disillusion? Elaine Weiss answers these timely questions in a brilliant book that illuminates not only the past but also a path forward.”
“An inspiring and insightful tale of a group of activists who worked outside the limelight of the Civil Rights Movement, holding classes in rundown shacks in isolated communities to teach civics and education to newly empowered Black voters who would go on to become the backbone of Black political organizing in the years after the fall of Jim Crow. Their work and its legacies are a testament to civics education among the most marginalized and oppressed members of our society.”
Book Reviews
‘Spell Freedom’ celebrates unsung educators behind the Civil Rights Movement by Phil Kloer – Author Elaine Weiss focuses on lesser known heroes trained at progressive Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.
Review: What were the secret schools that helped prepare Black people to vote? Nonfiction: “Spell Freedom” offers the untold stories of citizenship schools in the ‘50s and ’60s.
Review: ‘Spell Freedom’ looks at literacy schools in the segregated South, including Monteagle’s Highlander Folk School
‘Spell Freedom’ Review: Literacy and Justice for All – The civil-rights activist Septima Clark once said she regretted that ‘young people prefer demonstrations over genuine education.’
Elaine Weiss: In The Spotlight
C-SPAN: American History TV with Elaine Weiss – Spell Freedom
AIRED March 20, 2025 – Spell Freedom. Author Elaine Weiss traced the creation of underground schools in the Jim Crow-era South that helped prepare Black students for voter registration literacy tests designed to disenfranchise them. This event took place at the Brooklyn Public Library.
Elaine Weiss: Field Notes
Elaine Weiss at ThinkTN in Nashville signing her books, Spell Freedom and The Woman’s Hour.
SPLC Civil Rights Memorial Center poster for Spell Freedom book signing and discussion on April 28, 2026, featuring Elaine Weiss at the NewSouth Bookstore.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James holding her copy of Spell Freedom in Cooperstown, NY.
Spell Freedom and The Woman’s Hour by Elaine Weiss on display at The NewSouth Bookstore.
Elaine Weiss with Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Ella Baker Conversation Series in Knoxville, TN.
Elaine Weiss with Civil Rights Movement veteran Charlie Cobb at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Learning for Justice training institute in Knoxville, TN.
Spell Freedom: Elaine Weiss in the News
A collection of essays, interviews and news.
Amid Changes at the National Archives, the Carter Library Cancels a Civil Rights Book Event
February 22, 2025 Amid Changes at the National Archives, the Carter Library Cancels a Civil Rights Book Event After President Trump put in new leadership at the National Archives, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta abruptly canceled several events. by...
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