Reflecting Mississippi in Union County | |
|
Last Friday was one of those days when I am reminded why I love my job. I had traveled up to New Albany for the opening of an exhibit at the Union County Heritage Museum about the historic B.F. Ford School. The Mississippi Humanities Council has given a grant to fund the oral history component of the project. The Ford School educated generations of African Americans in Union County during the Jim Crow era. The school was renamed in honor of its longtime principal, Benjamin Franklin Ford, after he died in 1950.
After school integration, the history of these Black schools was often overlooked, with class photos and old trophies sometimes relegated to storage closets or even dumpsters. And yet, for those students who attended and were shaped by these institutions, these histories are important. When a historical marker for the B.F. Ford School was dedicated last week, over 200 people attended the ceremony!
The Union County Heritage Museum has done a wonderful job of collecting and sharing the history of the Ford School and Black education in New Albany. Last Friday, a large group of alums gathered at the museum to see the exhibit, share stories, and identify people in old photos. Sam Mosley talked about the experience of moving from a tiny country school to the “big city” of New Albany to attend high school at B.F. Ford. While the school was segregated, Mosley and his fellow students received an excellent education, though he noted, “the one thing that bothered me was the condition of the old textbooks we were given.” New books were reserved for White schools, while Black students had to suffice with worn hand-me-downs.
| | |
I drove back to Jackson that day energized and even more convinced that these stories matter. Representation matters. Local history museums preserving and sharing the stories that truly reflect their community is vitally important. | |
|
Despite the hard aspects of this history, the people who came to the exhibit opening were excited to see their own story depicted in the museum. They were gratified to see their school being honored as an important part of New Albany’s history. I drove back to Jackson that day energized and even more convinced that these stories matter. Representation matters. Local history museums preserving and sharing the stories that truly reflect their community is vitally important.
This idea is at the core of our 50th anniversary theme “Reflecting Mississippi.” Since our founding in 1972, the Mississippi Humanities Council has worked with museums and organizations around the state to tell Mississippi’s story in an honest and complete way. As I saw in New Albany, honoring everyone’s story can help bring the whole community together.
The B.F. Ford School exhibit will be on display at the Union County Heritage Museum through mid-March. Stop by if you’re in the area. But if you’re not, think about how the museums and historical societies in your area can work to preserve and share these types of stories in your community. The MHC stands ready to help them reflect Mississippi in their exhibits and programs.
| | |
|
Join Us at the 2022 Public Humanities Awards
The Mississippi Humanities Council will celebrate its 2022 Public Humanities Awards with a reception and ceremony ceremony Friday evening, March 25, at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. Tickets are on sale now.
During the event, the MHC will honor an array of scholars and organizations that have made significant contributions to the public humanities in our state. Dr. William Reynolds Ferris, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will receive the Cora Norman Award in recognition of his distinguished career as a scholar and national leader in the humanities. A native of Vicksburg, Ferris is a writer, folklorist, and documentarian who has written or edited ten books about Mississippi culture and history and was a founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Jon Parrish Peede, one of Ferris’ former students who served as NEH chairman from 2017 to 2020, will present the Cora Norman award to Ferris.
| |
|
In addition to honoring Ferris, the MHC will also recognize:
Humanities Scholar Award: Dr. Daphne Chamberlain, associate professor of history at Tougaloo College, for her commitment to bridging academic humanities and the public through her expertise as a civil rights historian.
Humanities Partner Award: New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson for its outstanding Black History Month programs that have received MHC grant support for several years.
Humanities Educator: Mississippi Delta Community College Prison Education Program for its work providing for-credit courses to incarcerated students at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman amidst the COVID pandemic.
Preserver of Mississippi Culture: Fannie Lou Hamer’s America Project, which produced a documentary film that will be broadcast nationwide over public television, bringing the voice and story of an extraordinary Mississippian to a national audience.
Reflecting Mississippi Award: W. Ralph Eubanks for his work as a memoirist and literary scholar that has helped revise our state’s narratives to reflect Mississippi more honestly and accurately.
The MHC will also recognize 30 recipients of the 2022 Humanities Teacher Awards, which pay tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of our state’s institutions of higher learning.
Tickets for the Mississippi Humanities Council Public Humanities Awards are $50 each and may be purchased online or by sending a check to the Mississippi Humanities Council, 3825 Ridgewood Road, Room 317, Jackson, MS 39211. Multiple sponsorship levels for individuals and institutions are also available.
The MHC would like to thank Trustmark Bank, Sanderson Farms, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for being Patron Sponsors of the event.
| |
|
Virtual Panel to Discuss Mississippi Monuments
Join us for a virtual Ideas on Tap program titled "Reflecting Mississippi in Monuments." Panelists will discuss aspects of various Mississippi memorials, including: Who has been represented in our state’s monuments? Who hasn’t been? How can we use monuments to tell a fuller, more accurate history of Mississippi?
Sue Mobley of Monument Lab, Kathleen Bond of the National Park Service, and Dennis Dahmer (son of Civil Rights veteran Vernon Dahmer), will add new perspectives to this ongoing conversation. MHC Executive Director Stuart Rockoff will moderate the discussion.
This program will be virtual and streamed from the MHC Facebook page at 6:30 p.m. February 23. To learn more about this event, contact MHC program and outreach officer John Spann.
| |
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Humanities Teacher Award winner Dr. Tammy Townsend with MHC program and outreach officer John Spann. To see a full list of 2022 HTA winners, visit our website, and be sure to check our events calendar for upcoming lectures. | |
|
Family Reading Programs Return
The Mississippi Humanities Council's Family Reading Program has resumed after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Perkinston, coordinated by MGCCC librarian Shugana Williams, welcomed 30 families to connect through the humanities and literacy. Local children and their families enjoyed a meal, heard from a representative from the Stone County Library, and read books that highlight the importance of storytelling and reading together. Longtime Family Reading Program partners Althea Jerome and Daisha Walker served as storyteller and discussion leader.
This program is part of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities' Prime Time Family Reading program is conducted in Mississippi through the MHC. In addition to MHC financial support, the Perkinston program also received funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission.
The MHC's Family Reading Program includes English-based Prime Time programs and Spanish-English Luciérnagas programs. The six- and seven-week programs are free to host and are geared towards 6- to 10-year-olds and their families. To learn more about our Family Reading Program, contact Molly McMillan.
| |
|
MHC-Funded Documentary on Civil Rights Leader to Premiere
Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, a film that explores and celebrates the life of a Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist and one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders, will premiere on PBS’s America ReFramed February 22 at 8 p.m.
The MHC has awarded multiple grants in support of this documentary film project, beginning in 2017 with a pre-production grant and most recently, in November 2021, with a “Reflecting Mississippi” grant to complete the film for national broadcast. There will be a free public screening March 1 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson followed by a conversation with the director Joy Davenport and Sharon Miles, education director of New Stage Theatre. MHC provided the first grant funds to support this project and has continued to support the filmmakers in their work to bring the story of Fannie Lou Hamer to national and international audiences.
Known for her powerful speeches, soul-stirring songs and impassioned pleas for equal rights, in Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, the fearless Hamer tells her own story through archival audio and video footage recorded throughout her political and activist career. Known for being “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Hamer helped change laws and was influential in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Although she is primarily known for her political activism, Hamer was also a humanitarian, providing clothing, housing and education for disadvantaged African Americans in the Mississippi Delta. By giving voice to the economic exploitation and political oppression in her community, Hamer became a symbol of the largest grassroots movement for social justice in American history whose words are as relevant now as they were in 1964.
The film is accompanied by a Civil Rights curriculum, piloted in the underserved and historically impoverished Mississippi Delta, where Hamer was from and performed most of her humanitarian efforts.
Fannie Lou Hamer’s America will be aired on four additional dates via the World Channel Feb. 24, 25, 26 and 27. More information about the film and upcoming screenings is available at https://www.fannielouhamersamerica.com/. A video clip is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2mAo_z17OY.
| |
|
Prison Education: Book Drive for Incarcerated Students
Incarcerated college students face many challenges including the lack of resources to complete research-based assignments. To address this problem, MHC's partner in prison education, the Mississippi Community College Board (MCCB), is sponsoring a book drive.
Organizing the drive is Dr. Audra Love Dean, assistant executive director for academic and student affairs at MCCB. “The Mississippi Community College Board has sponsored successful children’s book drives in the past, but we decided to change our focus this time,” explained Dean. “In our work supporting higher education in prisons, we saw the need to increase and improve the library offerings in our Mississippi prisons.”
None of the students enrolled through the MHC Prison Education Program have the opportunity to use the Internet, and prison libraries typically have limited academic holdings. With funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, MHC currently sponsors three community colleges to offer for-credit humanities courses in prisons: Mississippi Delta Community College at Mississippi State Penitentiary, Parchman; Northeast Mississippi Community College at Alcorn County Correctional Facility; and Hinds Community College at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.
“Research has shown that education helps to reduce rates of recidivism, and libraries can play a big part in that,” Dean said. “We hope to provide access to a wide variety of books ranging from novels, textbooks, research, and job training materials. It is our desire this will aid in the learning and the rehabilitation process.“
Joining this effort is Big House Books which sends free books by request to prisoners in Mississippi correctional facilities to promote literacy and be a vehicle of change for prison reform. Since Big House seldom has requests for their academic donations, the non-profit, volunteer organization is partnering with MHC to place these resources in prison libraries.
Anyone wishing to make donations may contact MHC project coordinator Carla Falkner or leave books at the collection boxes found on the entry floors of the Education and Research Center at 3825 Ridgewood Road in Jackson.
| |
|
33rd Annual Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration Opens February 24
The 2022 Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration will focus on the intersection of Mississippi's indigenous culture with the arrival of the European and African cultures using the theme, "Mississippi: A Tapestry of American Life." As a microcosm of America, early Mississippi will be highlighted in various presentations by scholars, authors, and filmmakers reflecting the diversity of our state. The Mississippi Humanities Council has supported the NLCC with program grants throughout most of its 33 years, helping bring nationally and internationally known scholars to Mississippi.
This year’s conference will be held in-person Feb. 24-25 at the Natchez Convention Center, 211 Main Street, after the COVID19 pandemic required a transition to a virtual format last year. The diverse lineup of presenters will explore the complexity of America through the lens of the Mississippi Territory. These presentations will tell a more complete story of the early population of the area which has been underrepresented in most standard accounts of American History. The topics and themes will include the early settlement by the English, Spanish, and French Colonists and their interactions with Native Americans including the Natchez, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Tribes. The introduction of slavery into the territory will be addressed along with presentations describing the laws which maintained control of the slave trade and the enslaved, the establishment and growth of the Forks of the Road Slave Market, and the plight of free people of color before and during the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States. This story of Mississippi will weave together the influences of these rich cultures to broaden the audience's understanding of not only who we were but the continuous evolvement of who we are today.
The formal program will be enriched by panel discussions, question-and-answer sessions, awards ceremonies, book signings, a vendor's ally of local artists, workshops, book signings, and social events which will allow the audience to meet and greet the presenters. While most events are free, there are a few special occasions for which tickets are required. CEU credits offered for most programs.
A full brochure/schedule for the 2022 Natchez Literary and Cinema celebration is available on the NLCC website.
| |
|
Lecture Series Celebrates Black History Month
In November 2021, the Mississippi Humanities Council awarded a “Reflecting Mississippi” minigrant to Mississippi University for Women. The "Black History Month Lecture Series" was designed to expand the university’s Black History Month programming with diverse stories and discussions on history that accurately reflect the magnolia state. Project director Dr. Shahara’Tova Dente described the series as “a highlight of our campus's Black History Month celebrations.”
“Each panel has offered unique insight from scholars and has led to engaged discussions with the audience,” continued Dente. “Faculty, staff, students, and community members have joined, and it proves that these conversations should continue beyond February and this series." While three of the series’ panels have passed, the fourth panel, “Outkast and the Hip-Hop South” featuring Dr. Regina Bradley, will take place Thursday, February 24 at 6:30 p.m. If you are interested in attending this final program, please email bhmlectures@muw.edu to RSVP.
| |
Upcoming MHC-Sponsored Events | |
|
Central Mississippi:
“Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” Screening
March 1, 6:00 p.m.
Two Mississippi Museum, Jackson
This screening of Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is a collaboration of The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and MHC.
Learn More
| |
|
Northeast Mississippi:
O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in The American South
February 3 – April 23
Columbus Arts Council, Columbus
This event is a traveling multimedia exhibition that reveals life in northeast Mississippi as reflected in the photography of O.N. Pruitt. From 1915 to 1960, Pruitt, a white man in a racially segregated society, recorded community celebrations as well as troubling violence.
Learn More
Ulysses S. Grant Association Bicentennial
March 4, 2022
Mississippi State University, Starkville
While the U.S. Grant Annual Membership Meeting is typically an event for Grant Association members, this year as a part of the celebration of the birth of Grant in 1822, the Grant Annual Meeting will include public events that are open and free to the public.
Learn More
Keeping Up Our End of the Correspondence: Preserving Women’s Letters in the Digital Era
March 4, 2:00 p.m.
John Fant Memorial Library, Columbus
This event combines a panel and workshop discussing digitizing the letters and lives of Mississippi women. The panel will discuss the importance of letter-writing as a medium for documenting and researching women’s lives, featuring three scholars who have studied, written, and researched the letters of Mississippi women.
Learn More
| |
|
Southwest Mississippi:
Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration
February 24-26
Natchez Convention Center, Natchez
The Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration (NLCC) is a time-honored tradition in the state of Mississippi with a well-deserved reputation as one of the state’s most significant annual conferences devoted to literature, history, film, and culture. Each February, the NLCC chooses a new topic related to humanities in the American South and brings nationally known scholars and authors to Natchez for the award-winning conference.
Learn More
| |
|
Online:
Writer in Residence: Ross Gay
March 1-3, 2022
Acclaimed poet, essayist, and teacher Ross Gay will be leading a pair of events as part of The Mississippi State Institute for the Humanities’ Writer-in-Resident series, which will be streamed on the Institute’s Facebook:
March 1, 7:30 p.m.: Public Reading with Q&A
March 3, 7:30 p.m.: Virtual Writing Workshop
Learn More
| | | | |
