What is YOI?
The Youth Organizing Institute (YOI) is a leadership and skills development program for high school age students.  We use popular education to teach people's history, understand policies that impact young people, and learn organizing skills.  In the past 5 years, over 400 Triangle teens have participated in our trainings and we have helped to mobilize hundreds of young people to speak-out in support of equity in public schools.

Why YOI?
Youth of color, LGBTQ youth, and working class youth, struggle to find a voice in society and in their schools. Wake County has one of the highest suspension rates in the country. In Orange County students of color are 17x more likely to get suspended than white students for non violent crimes, such as cell phone use.  What's the solution? Youth Power!  When young people identify and name their experiences and stories, are equipped with tools, resources, and space to create solutions - the results are transformative.  In the legacy of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and following Ella Baker's leadership development model, the Youth Organizing Institute believes in elevating the collective voices and power of young people.

 Freedom Summer 1964

In the summer of 1964, hundreds of summer volunteers from across the US converged on Mississippi to put an end to the system of rigid segregation. The project set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers in small towns throughout Mississippi to aid the local black population.  The project was organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), CORE, and NAACP.  Most of the impetus, leadership, and financing for the Summer Project came from SNCC.  The civil rights workers and the summer volunteers challenged the policies by the state of Mississippi to keep Blacks from voting, getting a decent education, and holding elected offices. As a result of the Freedom Summer of 1964, some barriers to voting were eliminated and today Mississippi has close to 1,000 Black state and local elected officials. In fact, Mississippi has more Black elected officials than any other state in the union. While the Freedom Summer of ’64 made profound changes in the state of Mississippi and the country, much remains to be accomplished.

Carrying forward the legacy of Freedom Summer, on the 5th anniversary of YOI's summer program, we are renaming our our three week school to YOI Summer Freedom School. Connecting back to our people's history is crucial to us and our work, so this summer YOI staff and youth are making the commitment to two events that uplift the spirit of Freedom Summer: