Freedom Arts & Education Center

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Freedom Arts & Education Center

Creating artistic, academic, & advancement opportunities to feed, heal, & teach the youth of STL. Louis.

Freedom Arts & Education Center creates artistic, academic, and advancement opportunities to feed, heal, and teach the youth of St. By removing systemic barriers and building resourced spaces, youth realize their own power to become highly creative, literate, passionate, independent thinkers. Since 2012, we have supported youth through accessible community arts programs, uncolonized educational resources, enriching multidiscipline summer programs, in-school advocacy, and job opportunities.

08/28/2026

August 28th is a historic day of tragedy, resistance, unity, and power. Black August is when we study our history, fast from anything preventing liberation, train our bodies, minds, and spirits, and carry on the fight.

August 28, 1955: 14 year old Emmett Till is lied on by Carolyn Bryant and then brutally murdered by white supremacists. The evil killing of this child, the fact that his killers were never held responsible, and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley’s resolve and courage to “let the world see what they did” to her son made this tragedy a turning point in the struggle for liberation.

August 28, 1963: Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, and several other civil rights leaders organize The March on Washington. An estimated 260,000 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to advocate for civil rights, and, at the urging of Mahalia Jackson, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his iconic “I Have a Dream Speech” calling America to a moral reckoning and an end to legalized racism.

August 28, 1968: Bobby Seale and leaders from several other civil rights organizations protest the Vietnam War at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, after obtaining permits. Chicago’s Mayor Daley ordered police and the National Guard to stop the protest. Using teargas, billy clubs, and dump trucks, cops and military personnel injured an estimated 1,000 protestors and arrested 600, including Bobby Seale, who was bound and gagged in the courtroom at the infamous trial that followed.

We give thanks for and never forget Brother Emmett, Brother Martin, & Brother Bobby.

💛💚❤️🖤💜🤎

08/24/2026

Prayers up and boots on the ground for our scholars as the new school year is all the way here! Wishing and willing the best year yet for our students, educators, staff, guardians, and caretakers. Let’s all do right and make this school year a strong, safe, successful one!
💛💚❤️

08/22/2026

From August 21 through August 23 in 1831, Nat Turner led an uprising of enslaved people in Virginia. After seeing an eclipse of the sun and hearing the voice of God, Turner believed he “should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons.”

Read more from BlackPast.org & Zinn Education Project :

Taught to read by the son of his enslaver, Turner studied Christianity which he interpreted as condemning slavery. Turner also began to believe that God had chosen him to free people from slavery. He soon became known among fellow people in bo***ge as ‘The Prophet.’
Turner was sold to enslaver Joseph Travis in 1830. Less than a year after the sale, Turner received what he assumed was a sign from God when he witnessed the eclipse of the sun (February 1831). After sharing this experience with a few close friends, they began to plan an insurrection.
On the evening of Sunday, August 21, 1831, Turner met six associates in the woods at Cabin Pond, and about 2:00am they began to enter local houses and kill the white inhabitants. Over the next 36 hours, they were joined by as many as 60 other enslaved and free Black allies, and they killed about 55 people.
By noon of Tuesday, August 23, the insurgents had been killed, captured, or dispersed by local militia. Nat Turner escaped until October 30, when he was caught in the immediate vicinity.
The next day he was delivered to the county sheriff and on November 5th, Nat Turner was tried and condemned to be executed; on November 9th, he was hanged.”

🖼️ on panel 2: “God’s Ways are Mysterious” (2016) by Stephen Towns

💛💚❤️🖤💜🤎

08/21/2026

Today we honor the activist, author, and revolutionary abolitionist George Lester Jackson.

At 18 years old, he was given a prison sentence of “one year to life” because he was a passenger in a car whose driver allegedly stole $70 from a gas station. He was kept in dehumanizing conditions and regularly assaulted by prison guards. At 29 years old, he was murdered by prison guards for educating and mobilizing his fellow inmates.

Like too many of our heroes, his life was cut short because his existence was too frightening to the fragile, evil empire. So we carry on his work and never forget his words.

“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”
(from “Blood in My Eye” by George L Jackson)

“Fascism has temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform. The only way we can destroy it is to refuse to compromise with the enemy state and its ruling class.”
(from “Blood in My Eye” by George L Jackson)

“Our children deserve to experience a learning environment that shows them how to think rather than how to regurgitate. They should be given many ideas and scopes to view their world and explain phenomena. Our children deserve an educational system that accepts them, that accepts their hair, that breaks cycles (colorism, violence, sexism, dehumanization).
Schools that include meditation, healthy food, well paid and well educated teachers, combining the best elements of every society under one roof, field trips, discussion, a symbiotic and reciprocal teacher-student relationship, restorative justice.”
(from “Soledad Brother” by George L Jackson)

“I’ve been patient, but where I’m concerned patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it’s cowardice.”
(George L Jackson in a letter to his parents in May 1965)

💛💚❤️🖤💜🤎

08/20/2026

FAST is the second pillar of Black August!

“The second pillar of Black August, Fast, asks us to be intentional with our consumption — whether physical, intellectual, monetary, or any aspect of our lives. Fasting is a conscious act: it frees our bodies from harmful consumption, disciplines the mind to resist cravings and sharpens our awareness of the Black condition, and reconnects our spirit to the strength of the ancestors who sacrificed for the betterment of Black life. In sacrificing together, across the nation, we are reminded that we do not struggle alone.”
Movement For Black Lives

“Fasting has often been used as a method for people from all walks of life to cleanse their mind and body, as well as oppose harmful political and inhumane acts…The fast is less about strict adherence and more about mindfulness of our collective struggle.”
Alexis Wray

💦Only Water: Follow a traditional fast by consuming only water from sunup to sundown.

🥦Eat Healthier: Cut out foods and substances that you know aren’t healthy for you. Cleanse your body.

📚Decrease Devices: Decrease device use, specifically social media, gaming, and anything that takes your energy and attention away from study and community.

🚫Decrease Spending: Cut back on non-essential spending. Save! And redirect your funds towards the movement and worthy causes. Fight back against capitalist strategies and tendencies.

Let’s create habits of wisdom and intentionality with our consumption during Black August and carry them all year!

💛💚❤️🖤🤎💜

08/14/2026

STUDY is the first pillar of Black August!

“Our incarcerated comrades led study sessions, read revolutionary texts, and developed revolutionary ideology connected to liberation struggles around the world. We must do the same - study.
We must educate ourselves and our communities about the conditions of our incarcerated siblings and their families, our political prisoners, and our prisoners of war.”
Movement For Black Lives

Here are some suggestions for your library:

A Taste of Power by Elaine Brown
Abolition for The People by Colin Kaepernick
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis
Abolition. Feminism. Now. by Angela Davis
Affirmative Acts by June Jordan
Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
The Assassination of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas
Blood in My Eye by George Jackson
The Black Panthers Speak by Philip S Foner
Discourse on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Golden Gulag by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Killing Rage: Ending Racism by bell hooks
Live from Death Row by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Nat Turner, Black Prophet by Anthony Kaye
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
Revolution in Our Time by Kekla Magoon
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Soledad Brother by George Jackson
To Die for the People by Huey P. Newton
We Are Our Own Liberators by Jalil A Muntaqim
We Do This ’Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

💛💚❤️🖤🤎💜

08/11/2026

The Watts Rebellion took place in Los Angeles in 1965 from August 11 through August 16. This uprising was the result of mounting instances of police brutality, housing discrimination, and divested school systems. 34 people were killed and 4,000 arrests were made. In the end, all charges were dropped against arrestees when the Muslim community proved police used the rebellion as an excuse to destroy their local masjid when they trapped protesters inside, fired tear gas into it, and burned it down.

Read more from Blackpast.org :

“Following World War II, over 500,000 African Americans migrated to West Coast cities in hopes of escaping racism and discrimination. However, they found both in the west. For many Black LA residents who lived in Watts, their isolation in that community was evidence that racial equality remained a distant goal as they experienced housing, education, employment, and political discrimination. These racial injustices caused Watts’ African American population to explode on August 11, 1965, in what would become the Watts Rebellion.

The rebellion began on August 11th when the LA Highway Patrol stopped Black Watts resident Marquette Frye and his brother, alleging that they were speeding. Back-up was called from the LAPD as a crowd gathered. Since the incident was close to Frye’s home, his mother emerged to find her son resisting arrest. Fearful that his arrest may ignite a riot, one LAPD officer drew his firearm. Catching a glimpse of the gun, Mrs. Frye jumped onto the officer’s back, causing the crowd to begin cheering. LAPD officers arrested all three of the Fryes. Enraged by the family’s arrests, Watts’ residents protested as the police cars drove away. Less than an hour later, Black Angelenos took to the streets.
Most of the 34 dead were Black citizens. Two policemen and one firefighter were among the casualties, and 26 deaths, mostly the result of LAPD or National Guard actions, were deemed justifiable homicides.”

08/09/2026

Mike Brown means
we got to fight back.

12 years ago today, Mike Brown was brutally murdered. Walking his neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon, he was targeted and gunned down in the midwest heat by an unrepentant, state sanctioned killer, and there has been no justice and very little change.

The Ferguson Uprising was born in Black August, radicalizing a people and catalyzing a movement that has not stopped. But the cost should have never been this young person’s life.
Mike Brown deserves to be alive and these racist, militarized police should not exist.

So we remember Mike Mike every day.
We fight on with our brother, now ancestor, in our hearts and on our minds.

Beloved Mike Mike, we will never stop speaking your sweet name, or working to create safe spaces for young people and put a stop to the state-sanctioned violence that stole you from us far too soon.

Our hearts are with the McSpadden and Brown families today and every day.
Rest in power, Mike.
Peace to the family and community.
No rest or peace for the wicked.

Turn up,
Never turn down,
We do this for Mike Brown.

💛💚❤️🖤🤎💜

08/06/2026

We’ve got your soundtrack as you study, fast, train, & fight! 🎵
Get your Black August vibes from Nina, Kendrick, Janelle, Roberta, Keyon, Erykah, Yasiin, Aretha, Rapsody, OutKast, Tribe, Meshell, & more.

🔗 in comments

💛💚❤️🖤💜🤎

Address

4138 N Grand Boulevard
St. Louis, MO
63107

Website

http://FAECSTL.org/

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