The Long Haul with Rick Ayers

Under the Tree: A Seminar on Freedom with Bill Ayers

Young people in many parts of the country are denied decent school facilities, honest and forward-looking curriculum, and fully qualified teachers, but the fundamental injury they face is the deliberate and systematic suppression of freedom. They have endured institutions—not only schools, but the cops and La Migra, the courts and the hospitals—that routinely disregard their humanity. These are First Nations students or the descendants of formerly enslaved and African-ancestored people or recent immigrants from poor countries; they’re from working-class families and they’ve attended schools of poverty; many have participated in a sort of general strike and run away from those schools. What could it mean and how would it look if these young folks were to mobilize themselves in order to articulate their own desires, their own demands and dreams, and pursue their own questions? We’re joined in conversation with Rick Ayers, a life-long freedom fighter and legendary teacher.