Mississippi Humanities Council Newsletter - December 2020 |
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Executive Director's Message
MHC Looking Ahead
As I pulled into downtown Mount Olive a few weeks ago, it felt almost normal again. Since March, we have not been able to travel the state and attend MHC-funded programs as our staff and board usually do.
But on that day, I was in Mount Olive to celebrate the opening of our latest Museum on Main Street traveling Smithsonian exhibit, “Crossroads: Change in Rural America.” Although it was a cold morning and everyone was wearing a mask and social distancing, the excitement in the community was palpable. Though Mount Olive has fewer than 1,000 people, they formed several local committees to coordinate the exhibit’s six-week stay. They enlisted local organizations and raised money to refurbish a volunteer fire department building to house the exhibit, installing air conditioning to ensure it was climate-controlled. It was clear this Smithsonian exhibit we brought to Mount Olive would have a lasting impact on the town. I drove back to Jackson that day reminded of the importance of the work we do to bring the humanities to the people of our state, no matter whether they live in cities or small towns like Mount Olive.
Our commitment to serving our state has only strengthened during the COVID-19 pandemic. When Congress passed the CARES Act, allocating money to state humanities councils to help support cultural institutions struggling from the pandemic, we moved quickly to distribute these federal relief funds. Only a few days after receiving official notice from the National Endowment for the Humanities, we launched our CARES Emergency Grant program. Within five weeks, we had distributed $468,000 to over fifty different Mississippi cultural institutions, helping them cover their basic operating expenses and pay their staff while they were closed to the public.
Like so many of these cultural nonprofit organizations, the Mississippi Humanities Council has had to be flexible and pivot to meet these extraordinary circumstances. We have moved some of our programs to virtual spaces, including our “Ideas on Tap” discussion series and our Speakers Bureau. Public libraries and community organizations around the state have used our Speakers Bureau to provide virtual programs to their communities while their buildings are closed to the public.
Like our partners, COVID-19 has forced us to think innovatively. This month, we launched a six-part series with our friends at Massachusetts Humanities called “MS+MA: Crossing Borders/Connecting Stories.” These interactive online programs will foster conversation between our two states. We will be examining intersecting points in our histories and exploring our rich literary traditions. At a time when the pandemic has created a greater sense of isolation, we are forging connections across state boundaries.
Even as we have learned to do our work in new ways, we have big plans for 2021. We have developed a major new initiative in prison education with three Mississippi community colleges and are launching a new program series about democracy and voting with our partners at Mississippi Public Broadcasting. These new initiatives will help us extend our reach into more communities around the state and impact the lives of more Mississippians.
In 2021, as our staff gets back on the road, we stand ready to meet increased demand for our grants, our Speakers Bureau, family reading programs, and our humanities-based prison education programs.
I typically do not ask for donations in my director’s message, but as we reach the end of a year that has challenged so many of us, I humbly request your support.
With your donation, we can better reach rural, underserved areas like Mount Olive. We can bring the richness of the humanities and lifelong learning to more Mississippians, no matter where they live or if they are incarcerated. We can continue to support our state’s cultural organizations and museums who enrich our communities with thoughtful humanities programs. And we can help more communities wrestle with their difficult histories and build bridges of understanding during a time of widespread division.
Thank you so much for your support of the MHC and the humanities in Mississippi.
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Join Us Tonight for Ideas on Tap!
Tonight, the Mississippi Humanities Council will host a conversation on the polarization of American news and politics. The virtual event is free and open to the public to view on Facebook.
The program will address the U.S.'s increasing division over political beliefs, how news silos have affected how we determine truth and reality, and what to do to combat the current polarization. Panelists include Dr. Talia Stroud (Director, Center for Media Engagement and Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin), Dr. Marvin King (Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Mississippi), and Kayleigh Skinner (Managing Editor, Mississippi Today). MHC Executive Director Dr. Stuart Rockoff will moderate the program.
The program will be livestreamed directly to the MHC Facebook page beginning at 5:30pm central. Audience members are encouraged to ask questions in the chat section that the panel will address during a Q&A session at the end of the program.
This program is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's "Democracy and the Informed Citizen" initiative, in partnership with the Federation of State Humanities Councils. More information on the program can be found here.
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MHC Partners with Mass Humanities to Continue Programming in 2021
Earlier this month the Mississippi Humanities Council, in partnership with Mass (Massachusetts) Humanities, launched a six-part cross-state dialogue series examining intersecting points in our histories and exploring our rich cultural traditions. The second “MS + MA: Crossing Borders/Connecting Stories” dialogue will take place January 14, 2021, and will be entitled, "Inside/Out—The Lessons of Freedom Summer,” where we will explore the connections between our two states during the Civil Rights Movement.
"The first session was a tremendous success, and we received lots of feedback from participants about how much they enjoyed thinking deeply about the differences and similarities between our two states and connecting with people from a different part of the country," noted MHC Executive Director Stuart Rockoff
The January dialogue will feature veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, both from Mississippi and from Massachusetts, who will examine social justice activism as a grassroots movement and the impact outside activists have on local efforts. The agenda will include a facilitated conversation among the speakers, with small-group breakout sessions for audience participants from both Mississippi and Massachusetts to engage further. The MS+MA dialogues are interactive, take place on Zoom, and are free and open to the public.
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Changes Announced to Crossroads Mississippi Tour
Due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the state, the MHC and local Crossroads host sites have decided to temporarily pause the Smithsonian traveling exhibition’s Mississippi tour. The exhibition will remain in storage through February 2021, when it will open at East Mississippi Community College in Scooba. Waveland’s Ground Zero Hurricane Museum, originally scheduled to host the exhibition December 2020 through February 2021 will now host Crossroads at the end of its Mississippi tour, from June through August 2021. All other host site and dates will remain the same. For more information on the exhibition and an updated schedule of the Mississippi tour, visit our website.
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Speakers Bureau Interview: Margaret Hagerman
As part of the MHC’s recent Anti-Racism Reading Shelf Grant project for public libraries in Mississippi, a new roster of presentations was added to the Speakers Bureau. One of the newly added scholars is Margaret A. Hagerman. Dr. Hagerman is an associate professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University and is a faculty affiliate in both the African American Studies and Gender Studies programs. She is an award-winning author of White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America (NYU Press 2019), and she is a nationally recognized expert on white racial socialization. She teaches classes on racism, education, families, and qualitative methods. Dr. Hagerman received her B.A. in English and her M.A. in Sociology at Lehigh University, and she earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Emory University in 2014. More information about Dr. Hagerman's presentation that shares a title with her 2019 book, can be found on the MHC website.
MHC: Can you give a brief description of your talk "White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America," and how do you see it fit into the category of "anti-racism?"
MH: American children are living in a world of ongoing public debates about race, daily displays of racial violence, and for some, an increased awareness surrounding racism and inequality. Based on two years of ethnographic research with affluent, white kids and their families, this talk examines how white children learn about race, racism, inequality, and privilege in the contexts of their everyday lives. This talk explores how white racial socialization is a process that stretches beyond white parents’ explicit conversations with their white children and includes not only the choices parents make about neighborhoods, schools, peer groups, extracurricular activities, and media, but also the choices made by the kids themselves. Through interviews with middle school aged children and their parents, as well as observations of these families in their homes and communities, this talk offers an close-up look at how ideas about race develop in childhood—and offers suggestions about the kinds of changes white parents need to make if they want to truly raise “anti-racist” children.
MHC: What kind of quantative and qualitive information did you collect in order to write your book of the same name? What was the process?
MH: This book is based on two years of data that I collected as part of a child-centered ethnography. In an ethnography, the researcher tries to understand how the research participants understand some aspect of the social world around them. Because I wanted to understand how white affluent middle-school-aged kids learned about race in connection with their families, I moved to the research site and tried to immerse myself into the community. After finding people to participate, I then collected interviews with children in 30 families and their parents, and I observed these families in their everyday lives. I drove kids to soccer practice, did homework after school, went to Boy Scout events, and so on. I also went back a few years later when the kids were in high school to see if their perspectives had changed or not.
MHC: Your work largely revolves around young white people. How are they taught about race in today's society?
MH: White kids learn race by observing and interpreting the social world around them, or what I call a “racial context of childhood.” They notice patterns in our society, like where different groups of people live in their community, or who tends to be in positions of authority in our country. They also learn about race through their interactions with other kids and with adults in their lives like teachers, coaches, and family members. Overall, my research documents how the decisions parents make about where to live, where to send kids to school, which extracurricular activities to enroll in, where to travel, what media to consume, and so on, serve to set up this context that then shapes kids’ racial learning.
MHC: Based on the reading list provided to libraries for the Anti-Racism Reading Shelf grants, are there any titles you would call "must-reads?" Which one(s) jump out to you and are memorable?
MH: Wow, this is such a great list of books. I think they all stick out to me as “must-reads.” My answer is: all. They are all must-reads. Read all of them.
MHC:Is there anything you would like to add to our readers about your work, or what people can/should do to learn more about this topic?
MH: My favorite resource to share with those interested in learning more about how kids learn about race is the organization Embrace Race. This website has a number of webinars and other resources put together with the help of experts across Child Development, Black Studies, Sociology, Education, etc. There are many tools and ideas that offer support for parents and other adults working to help young people across racial groups navigate and challenge racism in our society
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Hagerman's talk, or book her for a presentation, please visit the Speakers Bureau section of the MHC website, or contact Molly McMillan.
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Interested in exploring COVID-19’s lasting impact on our society? Host one of the MHC’s three Humbox community discussion programs to learn how history, bioethics, and public health shape our understanding of COVID-19. More information on hosting a free Humbox can be found on the MHC website.
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MHC Holiday Break
The Mississippi Humanities Council will be closed starting 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 22, through January 3. We will return January 4 at 8:30 a.m. We wish you and your family warm seasons greetings and a Happy New Year!
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#HumanitiesAtHome
In lieu of our typical "Upcoming Events" section, a few of the MHC board members are providing recommendations for books, series, movies, podcasts and other modes of entertainment that can help you explore the humanities from your home.
PRESELFANNIE MCDANIELS
Dean, Graduate Studies Program, Jackson State University
I have recently watched and am now reading the following:
TV Series: HBO's Lovecraft Country (Season 1)
Movie: 21 Bridges
Move: Antebellum
Book: We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
DOUGLASS SULLIVAN-GONZALEZ
Dean, Sally Barksdale Honors College, University of Mississippi
I’ve been catching up on the reading in my field of history (Latin America) lately, and have found deep rest in articles that take me beyond my field. I go to the Wired magazine or to the London Review of Books to dive deep into someone else’s world! I confess to follow the commentators Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish), Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg), Maragaret Merry Sullivan (@Sulliview), and Ross Douthat(@DouthatNYT) to taste the waters of the current political and cultural drama. However, I’m a complete nut for the new Star Trek series (CBS All Access) entitled, Star Trek: Discovery. The young Sonequa Martin-Green, who hails from Russellville, AL, and is a graduate of U Alabama Tuscaloosa, captures the screen with her lead role. We are in the third season, and the plot thickens in very unpredictable ways!
MELANIE DEAS
Director, The Link Centre
One of the silver linings of running an event center during a time when in-person events aren't really possible is that I've had a little more time than usual to catch up on my to-be-read stack of books. Up now is Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries by my college classmate Safi Bahcall. Loonshots is a suddenly timely look at how small changes can have bigger impacts than expected. Next is Ellis Cose's Democracy, If We Can Keep It, the story of the ACLU's first 100 years. On the lighter side, I'm streaming inspiring documentaries like Period. End of Sentence about the revolutionary cultural and economic impact of a simple machine in India and Giving Voice, about the August Wilson youth monologue competition, which has me on the edge of my seat to see Ma Rainey's Black Bottom as soon as it is released later this week. And last night, I was lucky to get to Zoom into a special lecture by Harvard professor Brandon Terry: “Love in Contentious Politics” is part of his class on Conscientious Citizenship and addresses the philosophy of MLK, Jr. and his appeals to “love” one’s enemies and the role “love” might play in today's contentious political scene.
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