The Modjeska Simkins School is gearing up for its next session, which begins March 1 and runs through June. To help celebrate our 10th year, we wanted share what the school has meant to some of the students who completed the program.

Tayler Simon, 2024 graduate

The Modjeska School was just what I needed to really begin to deepen my organizing work here in Columbia. From the very first lesson, I knew I was where I needed to be.

Dr. Greene’s lessons were taught with such knowledge and passion, and the curriculum curated by the SC Progressive Network staff was comprehensive. Each week as I sat through the lessons of the SC history I was never taught, I found my mind connecting to a million different things. I wrote more protest poetry and began solidifying the foundation I was building with my bookstore Liberation is Lit.

But what I took away the most was the community. I am connected to so many smart and passionate comrades (I refer to them to my friends outside of the School as my organizing comrades) who I continue to organize and learn from to this day.

Even the way I got connected to the Modjeska School was in a true grassroots way — a friend of a friend of a friend told me about it two days before the deadline to sign up.

I used to think social media was my best tool to organize for change; getting involved in the Modjeska School taught me that it’s the relationships you build offline (or via Zoom) in safe spaces to learn together.