Your freedom, your future: Why civic literacy belongs in childhood
What if the next generation didn’t have to unlearn fear before learning their rights?
In America, we are watching freedoms contract in real time — books are banned, history is silenced, and classrooms are policed. The casualties of this moment aren’t just educators or activists. They’re children — witnesses to our history being erased and our voices confined to shrinking spaces.
As an alumna of Howard University School of Law — a place steeped in the civil rights legacy of Thurgood Marshall and Pauli Murray — I was trained to protect justice with urgency. Just recently, one of my former professors tapped me to carry forward their renowned legacy, reminding me that the next legal battle isn’t about gaining new rights, but about fighting to keep the rights we already won.
Now, as a children’s author, legal educator, and a certified Montessori-trained teacher, I translate the law into tools our youngest citizens can use. I am also proud to be Florida International University’s first-ever Global Fulbright Scholar. My scholarship bridges continents, but my commitment is local: empowering the children of Miami with legal literacy rooted in truth, equity, and community.
To do this, I teach law through the African philosophy of Ubuntu — “I am because we are.” When we teach children their rights through this lens, we don’t just prepare them for the courtroom. We prepare them to stand for each other.
In South Florida, where cultures converge and resistance runs deep, Ubuntu is not abstract — it’s ancestral. But too often, our kids are denied access to books, language, and legal tools that reflect their lived realities. Civic education is delayed until high school, if it comes at all. By then, many students have already internalized silence as safety.
But here’s the truth: we have birthed a generation of children who expect justice. So let us rise to meet their expectations — and give them more tools in their box.
What if we taught a kindergartener that the First Amendment is more than a rule — it’s a responsibility? What if middle schoolers could recognize disinformation and respond with community-sourced truth?
Let us make our local community a national model — one where civic education starts early, centers community, and is unapologetically inclusive. Let us teach the law as a living, breathing force—not just to defend ourselves, but to uplift one another.
Because when our children know their rights — and know they belong to something greater than themselves — they do not allow silence to legislate life.
They don’t just change the future. They change the now.
Allison Matulli is a civil rights-trained legal educator and Florida International University’s first Global Fulbright Scholar. She is the author of “Your Freedom, Your Power: A Kid’s Guide to the First Amendment.”
This story was originally published July 21, 2025 at 7:00 AM.