Guest Post: Evolution from Free the Children US to Social Justice Art Share – A Profile in Grassroots Activism
During the Trump administration, many learned that humanitarianism wasn’t exactly a priority. Back in June 2018, some moms in Texas couldn’t just sit by and do nothing while thousands of children were being separated from their families as a result of some of the most cruel government policy ever implemented in the U.S. As images of children kept in cages flooded in the media in a heartless attempt to discourage immigration by traumatizing children and their families, these Texas moms had to at least try and do something about it.
They called their team, Free the Children US and the mission from the beginning was to provide helpful information for those suffering from family separation at the U.S. border. They included the rare glimmers of hope and championed all those angels who had participated in trying help out in any way they could, through activism art, protests, sidewalk schools for migrant children, legal outreach, and administrators who’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty.
As a result of the previous administration’s ability to keep the chaos and noise level in the media at a constant fever pitch, they worked every single day for three years to find stories of hardship and occasional triumph and share them far and wide.
One team member for Free the Children US told us,
“We experimented with various times of the day to release new posts to get the most community engagement. Our aim was to give the reportage of the family separation atrocities and ongoing humanitarian crisis the very best opportunity to cut through the constant onslaught of Trump distraction. We’ve found the best times of the day have been between 9:30-11AM and 3:30-5PM CST. These ranges seemed to get the most consistent community engagement of any times during the day. The weekend postings only got about half of the engagement for the most part.”
The founder of Free the Children US, who goes simply as “mom” added,
“At one point we reached out to a professional organization to help us get the word out to artists about our site to help the children at the border. The then president of the organization said the topic was ‘too political’.” Mom continued, “Saving children has never been political to us, it is a matter of humanity and morality.”
Another from the Free the Children US team told us,
“We learned that it was often futile engaging with those who don’t agree with our humanitarian efforts and who evidently do not have a problem with the U.S. government policies designed to discourage immigration through terrorizing immigrants by separating families. We found a much better tactic had been to agree that there are problems with our current immigration system, but that there has to be a better way than traumatizing little children and separating families.”
When the conspiracy theorists insidiously appropriated the Save the Children organization’s namesake and turned it into an internet meme, implying that liberals were responsible all kinds of horrific acts against children, the Free the Children US team got mistakenly included in that group because the names are very similar.
Fortunately, we’ve all got a brand new team in charge in charge of the White House. There is still a long way to go, of course. But, the Free the Children US team are seeing glimmers of hope that the humanitarian nightmare is finally in the hands of an administration committed to doing the right thing by attempting to solve our nation’s complicated immigration challenges. The Biden administration actions so far have given Free the Children US great hope.
Free the Children US now has such great faith in the work the Biden administration is doing to right this great wrong, that they feel confident their efforts are no longer needed. Free the Children US began in June of 2018 and was finally sunset as of June of 2021. The entire team would like to thank all who have contributed art to their banner and poster galleries, as well as the countless individuals who’ve helped them spread the word.
socialjusticeartshare.com
The good news is that the Free the Children US shareable social media graphics will live on. They have already found a new shareable platform to host their collection of artist donated graphics and grow it to include many more over the years to come. The name for this new effort has now been finalized as Social Justice Art Share, with all of the Free the Children US social media accounts converted and renamed.
The founder of Free the Children US and Social Justice Art Share added,
“Going forward we will our continue efforts to shine a light on darkness. Much love and light to all who’ve helped us in our commitment to make sure those without a voice aren’t forgotten.” – mom
Social Justice Art Share is the evolution from the Free the Children US. Their mission is to provide a gallery of easily shareable social justice art and will be curating the new site with freely shareable and downloadable social justice art from various artists. All art within the Social Justice Art Share albums is approved for sharing and has information about each artist with a link to their online gallery presence.
If you are an artist or know any artists who would like to submit freely shareable social justice art for inclusion, please email socialjusticeartshare@gmail.com