Freedom School

Inspired by Rev. Kathy Tew Rickey, Jim Smith of the Healing Justice group will offer a four-part series of in-person racial justice programs he calls “Freedom School” at the Fellowship on Saturday afternoons, January 13, 20 and 27 and February 3, from 1 to 3 PM.

To register for in-person attendance at UUFBR, 2601 St. Andrews Blvd, Boca Raton – please RSVP to ">our admin Ruth with name and email of attendees.
For online attendance, register on Zoom at https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqd-yoqT8iE9WC8AUWP7odGXO7WfGBk4Dq

The programs will be based on “The 1619 Project” and other sources. Each will feature a co-presenter from the Palm Beach County community who will provide a local angle on the issue. The sessions will be on Capitalism, Healthcare, Education/ Employment, and Housing. They will discuss how Blacks have been disadvantaged in each category. The four co-presenters scheduled are: former Pahokee Mayor Colin Walkes; Pastor Ron Brown of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Boca Raton; Kenya Madison, director of the nonprofit Healthier Delray Beach; and Angela McDonald, chair of the Boca Raton Housing Authority board.

Walkes and McDonald have been previous presenters at UUFBR worship services. Walkes spoke in 2021 about forming a Black Lives Matter chapter in the Glades and the environmental racism attached to sugarcane burning there. (Jim has interested “60 Minutes” producer Graham Messick in the project and CBS has shot footage of the smoke and ash that engulfs Black neighborhoods at harvest time.)

McDonald last year filled us in on the planned demolition/relocation/ return project for the 95-unit low-income Dixie Manor apartment complex in Boca Raton and will update us. She is a tenant there.

Many of us have had breakfast at Pastor Brown’s church and marched with him and his flock in the past few Martin Luther King Day parades in Boca.

Madison is a lifelong Delray Beach resident who worked in schools for almost 20 years before being hired by the Palm Health Foundation. Her nonprofit is an initiative of the foundation and works with predominantly African American children and adults to raise awareness, encourage acceptance and equity, and increase access to healthcare and behavioral health services.