Leaders Igniting Transformation, or LIT, is a Black and brown youth-led nonprofit organization working in Milwaukee schools.
LIT’s work is focused on developing the next generation of leaders.
Its summer program, “Black Hogwarts,” is centered on training young activists and organizers in Wisconsin.
You won’t find any horcruxes, see any quidditch matches, or any other wizard activity at “Black Hogwarts.”
But what you will find is high school and college students educating themselves on how to make a difference in their communities.
They’re learning the history of organizing movements, leadership development skills and what it means to be civically engaged.
Jaszy Segarra, LIT’s senior director of operations, says Black Hogwarts is not your typical summer camp or school.
"It's kind of a unique experience. So, we're learning together, we're having some fun together, we're getting to know each other more on a deeper level of like what do we want to change in our communities and our schools and how can we do that and give them the tools to be successful in moving forward with those things," Segarra says.
She says Black Hogwarts is modeled after the Freedom Schools of the 1960s. Freedom Schools were educational initiatives designed to prepare Black people to politically advocate for themselves, as voters, organizers or elected officials.
Black Hogwarts has four pillars of learning. One of them is: Intersecting Anti-Oppression Work.
"So really identifying what are the issues in our communities where does those stem from and really digging a little bit deeper of OK we see racism in our schools, but where does that come from?" Segarra explains."Before we could come up with how we're going to solve the problem, we need to dig deeper into what the problem is and so really having — showing different examples of, you know, about the Black Panthers, the Brown Berets, different groups of people who organized a lot of things that today we get to live out, you know, their wildest dreams and their hopes for us."
The other three pillars are: Civic Engagement, Political Education and Community Organizing.
Black Hogwarts is for high school and college students, and working aged people who want to get involved in the work LIT does. The program sessions are divided among these groups.
High school students meet in person at LIT headquarters. College students meet virtually. Both groups meet for six weeks. The civics sessions also meet at LIT headquarters, but once a week for nine weeks.
The curriculum is the same, for the most part, at each level, but content is adjusted to cater to the lived experiences of participants.
Dadria Veal is a 17-year-old high school student, and this is her second summer at Black Hogwarts.
Veal was introduced to LIT through a close friend. She says Black Hogwarts is giving her information about her people that she says schools don’t teach.
She adds that Black Hogwarts has helped her find her voice.
"I've been on like my school page and stuff like that for getting my voice heard, so like it's making an impact on not only the internet but like people in our schools too, to see that there are kids who worry about things and that we do have our own opinion because a lot of people, they underestimate younger kids and younger students," Veal says.
Veal says some issues she cares about are gun violence and mental health.
She’s looking forward to becoming more civically engaged in her community, starting with registering to vote when she turns 18.
Another student passionate about getting civically engaged is 15-year-old Perry Perkins.
Perkins says his mom is the director of a nonprofit, and he’s been a part of its advocacy efforts, so he’s drawn to community organizing.
"I feel like our people needs to know that knocking on doors, voting and getting out there is the right way," Perkins says.
"It all starts at the elected officials and people that's in these seats, and I don't know if they understand that voting — the white people go out there and go vote and they got them people in their seats, and that's how we get stuck in the system. They got their people in offices; they neighborhoods is nice. I feel like it's important for us to get out there and make sure our people know that they need to vote," he adds.
Perkins, like Veal, says their schools haven’t talked a lot about civic engagement.
So, he says, that leads people to think current events have nothing to do with them.
Segarra says there are various ways to gauge what students have learned from Black Hogwarts. One way is for students to complete a final project.
"So, it's either coming up with what issue do you want to create a movement around. So, they work on a project together so that we can see, OK, what pieces did they learn by how they came up with their final project at the end of the program for all three cohorts," Segarra says.
Another way they gauge what students learn is through a post-assessment survey.
"So, at the end of all our programs — whether it's Black Hogwarts, fellowship, maybe our statewide conferences or youth power summits — we always want to see what these students learn after those programs so we can see, OK, how much did they learn, how much did they grow," Segarra says.
Success is also measured by whether students stay connected to the LIT leadership pipeline even after Black Hogwarts ends.
