PHOTO COURTESY OF THE FREEMAN FAMILY

IN MEMORY

DONALD “DON” FREEMAN

February 16,1939 – July 21, 2025

(Plain Press September 2025) For over a half a century, Don Freeman and his Soulmate Norma Freeman were a regular presence at Cleveland Board of Education meetings. At the meetings they focused on the responsibility of the Board of Education to provide Cleveland students with the best education possible.

     The couple were involved in numerous educational advocacy groups over the years including the Cleveland School Budget Coalition, the Give Our Students Prime Time Coalition and the Cleveland Education Committee. These groups focused on educational policy and ways to provide students with the skills and knowledge to be successful in life.

     In his role as long time Executive Director of League Park Center, Freeman was involved in educational advocacy, and providing cultural programs, sports programs, and tutoring programs for youth in the Hough neighborhood. During that period, he cofounded with Norma Freeman the School Without Walls, the Black Youth Cleveland State University Conferences, Black Communiversity and the Committee for Social Justice.

     In 1990, Don Freeman founded the Give Our Students Prime Time Coalition. Community groups from throughout the city of Cleveland pledged their support. In the January 30, 1990 edition of the Plain Press, the headline read “Plain Press Joins Prime Time Coalition.” The Coalition urged the Plain Press and other Cleveland media “to focus more attention on the responsibility of the Board of Education “to engender not only the maximum graduation of students, but their optimum education as well. This goal requires the nurturing of critical thinking and a dedication to ‘lifelong learning’ in Cleveland students at an early age i.e. the primary grades.”

     In a picture on the front page of the Plain Press, Don Freeman posed with a poem by Chilean Poet and Nobel Prize winner, Gabriela Mistral. The poem expresses the urgency of the task of the Give Our Students Prime Time Coalition:

     “We are guilty of many errors and many faults. But our worst crime is abandoning the children.… Neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait …  The Child cannot.”

     The Give Our Students Prime Time Coalition immediately called for opening of school buildings in the evening as a resource for the community. This advocacy eventually led to the opening of several schools in the evening in a program called Schools as a Community Resource.

     In 2001 Cleveland voters passed a bond issue to take advantage of a 2 to 1 match in State of Ohio dollars to build or substantially rehabilitate its school buildings. Don and Norma Freeman were among the community advocates calling for monitoring of how the dollars were spent. When the Bond Accountability Commission was formed, the Freemans became regular attendees of the Commission’s meetings. The Freemans saw the bond issue as an opportunity for the Cleveland school system to use the funds it had acquired to build or rehab schools as leverage to require contractors to take on Cleveland students in the Max Hayes construction program as union apprentices on school construction jobs.

     It took years of advocacy for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to finally establish a firm relationship with Cleveland’s trade unions. As a result of persistent advocacy by Don and Norma Freeman, the Max Hayes construction program students now have an opportunity to explore the various opportunities available for apprenticeships in Cleveland’s unions. Some graduates of Max Hayes are now employed in high paying union jobs.

     Don and Norma Freeman were an intellectual force in Cleveland. Together they published a twice-yearly publication called Vibration, a magazine “dedicated to the resurrection of the mentally and spiritually dead.”

     Don also published a book titled Reflections of a Resolute Radical. In the book he reflects on his founding and involvement with the Revolutionary Action Movement whose mission was the liberation of oppressed people worldwide. He wrote of his work with Malcom X, interactions with Martin Luther King, Jr. and many other leaders in the black liberation struggle.

     Don Freeman was proceeded in death by his Soulmate Norma (November 2019) and is survived by his sons Kevin, Bilal and Kwame.