About this episode

Dr. David J. Johns and Dr. Brittany Packnett Cunningham discuss the legacy of Freedom Summer and its relevance in today's educational and social contexts.

Freedom Summer didn't end in 1964 — it lives in every classroom, every protest, every young person who picks up a book and sees themselves as their own liberator. In this conversation, Dr. David J. Johns sits down with his sister and colleague Dr. Brittany Packnett Cunningham — strategist, educator, Webby Award-winning host of UNDISTRACTED, and Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of the Children's Defense Fund — to trace the direct line from Mississippi 1964 to the urgent work of this summer. They go deep on who actually carried Freedom Summer — young people and everyday Black Mississippians who risked everything for the audacity of a vote — and how Marian Wright, present on those same voter registration lines, took what she saw and built what would become CDF Freedom Schools, now serving upwards of 12,000 students every summer. Dr. Brittany explains why Freedom Schools are as much an intervention for the whole family as they are for the child — and why, in a moment when Roots has been banned in the same county where Alex Haley bought the farm that bears its legacy, we cannot afford to lose the recipes. The conversation moves into UNDISTRACTED — the Meteor Network flagship…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. David J. Johns

Guest: Dr. Brittany Packnett Cunningham

Topics covered

• Freedom Summer
• education
• Black history
• voter registration
• family intervention
• youth activism

Keywords

• Freedom Summer
• education
• Children's Defense Fund
• voter registration
• Black history
• youth activism
• family intervention

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Children's Defense Fund

Books & works: UNDISTRACTED, Roots

Places: Mississippi

More episodes of Teach the Babies w/ Dr. David J. Johns

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• Show Up for Our Kids with Dr. Bianca Baldridge · July 7, 2026 · 48 min
• We Want the Whole Menu with Dreisen Heath · June 30, 2026 · 28 min
• In Our Comfort, We Cannot Get Free with Tiffany Loftin · June 16, 2026 · 28 min

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