Raising
Free
People
A body of work by Akilah S. Richards
“We can’t keep using tools of oppression and expect to raise free people.”
I’m Akilah S. Richards, a Jamaican-born writer, speaker, and Certified Integrative Thanatologist. Raising Free People is the body of work I built around that insistence and the questions it opened in my family, my writing, and the communities I gathered with.
Raising Free People Lineage
2016
—2023
Fare of the Free Child
From 2016 through 2023, I hosted Fare of the Free Child, a podcast centering Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color in conversations about unschooling, Self-Directed Education, liberation, and the everyday practice of raising free people.
2020
Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work
Published by PM Press in English and Spanish.
Gatherings, conversations, writing, and community work
grew around them, carrying these questions into families, learning communities, and organizations.
My work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, Forbes, The Washington Post, and other media.
This body of work is complete, and it still influences how I live, write, gather, and engage in madd question askin’.
What I’m Tending Now
My work now centers grieftending—helping people recognize where a meaningful ending is still influencing how they live, and offering ways to tend what changed.
Radical Selfie Grounds is where you can find my ILID Practice, current offerings, grief-centered writing, and the living archive of my work.