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THE DELTA CENTER NEWSLETTER
The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships, and community engagement.
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Message from the Director
In academic circles, summer generally is viewed as a time to relax, recharge, and prepare for the beginning of the fall semester. Here at the The Delta Center, summer represents so much more.
For the past six years, The Delta Center has organized and hosted the "Most Southern Place on Earth" workshops funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). These workshops have exposed over 450 K-12 educators from throughout the United States to the Mississippi Delta's rich history and cultural heritage. NEH alumni take what they have learned back to their schools and communities. They essentially
have become a national network of educational and cultural ambassadors for the Mississippi Delta. Many participants return to the Delta after their NEH workshop experience, touring the region with family members, students, colleagues, and fellow NEH workshop participants.
This summer's NEH workshop participants represented 33 states, including Alaska, California, Florida, New Hampshire and Indiana. Several teachers from Mississippi participated as well. This fall, a group of NEH alumni - led by a participant from Alaska - will present at the National Council for the Social Studies conference in New Orleans. The Delta Center has been invited to participate in the panel discussion, which will include the Emmett Till traveling exhibit. This is an example of how busy summer seasons at The Delta Center yield even greater opportunities to fulfill its mission.
While hosting NEH workshops in June and July, The Delta Center simultaneously made significant progress implementing the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area (MDNHA) Management Plan. The completion of the region-wide National Park Service Passport Program in the spring led to requests for two additional MDNHA passport stations in Leland: one at the the Kermit the Frog Museum and another at the Highway 61 Blues Museum.
The MDNHA continued to host community events with Alysia Burton Steele and the Delta Jewels church mothers. The largest Delta Jewels community gathering occurred in July as part of Mound Bayou's 128th Founders' Day celebration weekend. Over 300 guests from across the country gathered to honor the Delta Jewels, hearing them share authentic Delta stories about faith, education, sharecropping, culinary traditions, and the Civil Rights Movement in a historic Delta community (Mound Bayou, founded by African American slaves in 1887, is included on the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places). This community gathering and an oral history workshop hosted at Delta State's Coahoma Higher Education Center in Clarksdale helped formalize the MDNHA's Delta Jewels Oral History Partnership that will launch during the fall semester.
The Delta Center also marked the completion of a successful first year administering the
International Delta Blues Project. Through campus and community partnerships, the Project has seen great progress, including the launching of a
Blues studies minor at Delta State this fall. The
Second Annual International Conference on the Blues will be hosted at Delta State on Monday, October 5 and Tuesday, October 6, and will feature preeminent Blues scholar and folklorist, Dr. Bill Ferris, from the Center for the Study of the American South at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. The conference also will feature GRAMMY Award-winning Blues artist, Dom Flemons, and a panel discussion on the the internationally renowned Mississippi Blues Trail. For more information, see the
2014-15 annual report
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NEH recently announced continued funding for "Most Southern" workshops in 2016. Indeed, summer will continue to be a busy time at The Delta Center: promoting greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history is an ongoing labor of love.
Warm regards,
Rolando Herts, Ph.D.
Director
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The Second Annual International Conference on the Blues
will be held October 5-6, 2015.
Topics of general interest to scholars and enthusiasts alike will be presented, including the African American musical tradition and its influence on American music and culture; the Blues; folklore; history; ethnicity; and the Delta.
Special guest artists and presenters will include
Dom Flemons (pictured on the left) and Dr. William Ferris (pictured on the right).
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T
he International Delta Blues Project hosted a faculty retreat at Leo's at the Levee, on August 11, 2015. This was a forum for the newly implemented Blues Studies faculty to meet, share, and brainstorm news ideas for the program. For more information on the Blues Studies Minor please contact
blues@deltastate.edu
or The Delta Center at 662-846-4311
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The Delta Center hosted a Landmarks in American History and Culture workshop again this year. The workshop is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and is titled "The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, History and Culture of the Mississippi Delta."
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For more information on the DeltaCenter for Culture and Learning, please visit our website at
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