Executive Director's Message | |
The Importance of Difficult Conversations | |
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The flash point was hoop skirts. During this year’s Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration, there was a panel discussion sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council on “Changing the Narrative and Telling a More Complete Story.” During the audience Q&A, there was much discussion about the hoop skirt, the traditional garb worn by women during the annual Natchez Pilgrimage and tours of the town’s antebellum homes. Is it a vestige of the “Lost Cause” narrative which has venerated the Confederacy and a white supremacist antebellum society, or is it simply historically accurate period clothing? Is there a way to tell a fuller story, which includes the experience of enslaved people and their efforts to fight for their own freedom, while keeping the traditional hoop-skirted antebellum home tours?
As I sat in the audience and heard various people try to answer these questions, the conversation got a little uncomfortable. Some rolled their eyes or shook their heads, disagreeing with what others were saying. The conversation could have gone on for much longer, but we needed to move onto the next session. Some moved the discussion to the hallway outside the convention hall. It was a little messy and even frustrating for some, but ultimately it was civil, and to me, an outsider from Jackson, vitally important.
No one tried to shout down the other side. The authors on the panel had written provocative books on the subject in question – no one tried to ban their work or ideas. Instead, people came together, listened, and engaged with the authors’ arguments. And while the audience did not reach a consensus about hoop skirts or the larger question of how Natchez should tell its story, I found the exchange to be a sign of a healthy community.
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No one tried to shout down the other side. The authors on the panel had written provocative books on the subject in question – no one tried to ban their work or ideas. Instead, people came together, listened, and engaged with the authors’ arguments.
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These types of conversations across differences are too rare in our state (and country) these days. Many of us have walled ourselves off in media echo chambers and only socialize with people of like mind. Racial barriers remain stubbornly persistent. And yet, in Natchez, Mississippi, people are having these tough conversations; they are listening to each other (even if it comes with a side of groans and eye-rolling).
This work is not easy. There aren’t simple answers to these questions. Even if you have a strong opinion about a particular issue, others in your community may not agree. It’s reckless and historically ignorant to call for a national separation between red and blue states. In fact, there are no red and blue states; each state, each community, like Natchez, is purple. We must learn to work together in our communities. In the process of listening and engaging with others, we are working toward, however slowly, a common purpose and a stronger community.
This is the only way forward in a diverse, pluralistic democracy. Banning books and ideas is contrary to our nation’s founding ideals of freedom of speech and thought. In a democracy, we must have a robust marketplace of ideas. The result may sometimes be uncomfortable and messy, even when talking about something as seemingly frivolous as hoop skirts, but it is vital.
The Mississippi Humanities Council is committed to these principles and stands ready to support communities that are prepared to have these difficult conversations through our grants program or by bringing our “Ideas on Tap” discussion program to your town. Please be in touch with us how about we can support this important work in your community.
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Join us at the 2023 Public Humanities Awards
This Friday, people from across the state will gather in Jackson at the Two Mississippi Museums to celebrate outstanding achievements in the public humanities and the work of the Mississippi Humanities Council. We hope all of the MHC’s friends and supporters will join us for a special evening.
At the 2023 Public Humanities Awards, we will honor:
· Dr. Rebecca Tuuri, associate professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi, Humanities Scholar Award.
· Dr. Ebony Lumumba, associate professor of English at Jackson State University, Humanities Educator Award.
· The Utica Institute Museum, Reflecting Mississippi Award.
· Dr. Roscoe Barnes, of Visit Natchez, Humanities Partner Award.
· Jeanne Luckett, Cora Norman Award for her lifetime achievement in the public humanities.
The MHC will also will recognize 30 recipients of the 2023 Humanities Teacher Awards, which pay tribute to outstanding faculty in traditional humanities fields at each of our state’s institutions of higher learning.
This year’s awards event begins at 5:30 p.m. with a reception featuring music, small plates, and drinks. The formal awards ceremony starts at 7 p.m.
Tickets for the Mississippi Humanities Council Public Humanities Awards ceremony and reception are $50 each and may be purchased through the MHC website or by sending a check to the Mississippi Humanities Council, 3825 Ridgewood Road, Room 317, Jackson, MS 39211. Individuals and organizations may also purchase sponsorships to the event at the $500, $300, and $150 levels.
The Mississippi Humanities Council would like to thank our corporate sponsors for the event: Mississippi Power, Cadence Bank, Trustmark, the Eudora Welty Foundation, the Hinds Community College Foundation, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
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Bring a Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker to Your Community
The MHC is calling for new applications for the Mississippi Freedom Trail. If you feel your community has a significant story to share about a place, person, or event relevant to the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, we encourage you to apply for a Freedom Trail marker. If you are unsure if your marker proposal meets the criteria, please refer to the guidelines on the MHC website. From now until the end of 2024, all approved Freedom Trail markers will be free of charge, due to funding provided by Visit Mississippi. The next deadline for applications is March 31, 2023, and can be found here. For more information about the Mississippi Freedom Trail, contact MHC Program & Outreach Officer John Spann.
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Mississippi Banned Books Festival
Mississippi will host its first ever Banned Books Festival on March 25. Across the nation, the list of banned books continues to grow, including such treasured books as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Beloved by Toni Morrison, A Time to Kill by John Grisham, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
The theme of the event is “Erasing,” and the authors will talk about the dangerous trend of book banning, which has led some school districts to remove scores of library books from the shelves. Angie Thomas, Kiese Laymon, Jesmyn Ward, and Rick Bragg are among the authors who will speak about this dangerous trend.
In keeping with the event’s theme of “Erasing,” Cheryl W. Thompson, senior editor and investigative correspondent for National Public Radio, will interview some of the nation’s top investigative reporters on the subject of “Erasing Truth.” They include: Mississippi Today’s Anna Wolfe, who broke the story on the state’s $77 million state welfare scandal; Julie K. Brown, whose book, Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, is based on her exposés on Epstein; and Gilbert King, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author who exposed the wrongful conviction of Leo Schofield in his popular podcast, “Bone Valley”.
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For the “Erasing History” panel, Alan Huffman, author of Mississippi in Africa, will interview Stephanie Rolph (author of Resisting Equality: The Citizens’ Council, 1954-1989), historian Daphne Chamberlain, (founding director of the Civil Rights Education Center at Jackson State University and the vice president for Strategic Initiatives and Social Justice at Tougaloo College), and Ko Bragg, who wrote in The Atlantic magazine about an aging cohort of Black tour guides fighting the local erasure of the Freedom Summer killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.
Ebony Lumumba, who serves on the MHC board, will interview Angie Thomas, whose book The Hate U Give is among the most banned books in the nation. W. Ralph Eubanks, the author of A Place Like Mississippi, will interview authors Kiese Laymon and Jesmyn Ward on “Erasing Memory.”
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The Mississippi Banned Books Festival is encouraging Mississippians to post videos of themselves reading passages from their favorite banned books. Students also will host read-ins at the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home and other places across Mississippi to bring attention to banned books and the need to read.
The festival is sponsored by the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute, Millsaps College, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the ACLU and Lemuria Books. Reena Evers-Everette, executive director of the institute, will host the event.
For a full list of panels and speakers, visit the Mississippi Banned Books Festival website.
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Proposals Invited for May 1 Grant Deadline
The Mississippi Humanities Council grants program supports projects that stimulate meaningful community dialogue, attract diverse audiences, are participatory and engaging, and apply the humanities to our everyday lives. Grants may be used to support public humanities programs, exhibits, the planning of larger projects, and the development of original productions in film, television, radio or online resources.
The Council also offers special grants to support oral history projects around the state.
Larger grants ($2,501-$10,000) deadlines are May 1 and September 15. Funded events may not occur fewer than eight weeks from the deadline date, and pre-consultation with MHC staff is required before submitting an application. Grant application forms and other related documents may be found on the grants page of the MHC website.
Applicants are encouraged to contact Carol Andersen before submitting project drafts.
Organizations seeking MHC funds will be REQUIRED to provide the Unique Entity ID (UEI). Due to federal regulations, MHC will be unable to award any funding to organizations that fail to submit this information. Organizations can receive their free UEI on the SAM.gov website. View this guide for assistance in obtaining your UEI.
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MCHEP Selects First Director
The Mississippi Consortium for Higher Education in Prison (MCHEP) has named its first director, Yolanda B. Houston.
She brings a variety of educational experience to the position. Houston served as an instructional facilitator at Holmes Community College in Ridgeland where she provided adults face-to-face and online instruction as they prepared for high school equivalency exams and the workforce.
From 2018 to 2021 she directed the Student Success Center at Hinds Community College-Utica Campus. Other experience includes serving as the coordinator of institutional effectiveness at Hinds Community College-Raymond and serving as a secondary public school teacher.
MCHEP was founded in 2021 through a partnership between the Mississippi Humanities Council, Mississippi Community College Board, Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, and the Woodward Hines Education Foundation. The Consortium is currently funded through an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to MHC and will be incubated by Woodward Hines for the next three years.
Houston will begin her new role April 3.
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Ideas on Tap: Addressing the Gender Divide in Mississippi Politics
According to a 2016 Clarion Ledger article, The Women who Run our State, “Of 172 legislative seats at the [Mississippi] state Capitol, only 25 are filled by women.” Now in 2023, that number has decreased to 23. In 2016, “only five of the 19 higher court judges and justices were women.” In 2023, there are only 4 women in Mississippi's high courts.
As the number of female college and law school graduates increases nationally, why hasn’t women’s political representation in Mississippi also grown? Join us Wednesday, March 29 at Cultivation Food Hall in Jackson as we address this question and others in our next Ideas on Tap conversation: Addressing the Gender Divide in Mississippi Politics.
Among our panel guests will be Rep. Zakiya Summers (District 68) and Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd (District 9.) Frances Patterson Croft of the Women's Foundation for Mississippi will moderate the discussion. The event will begin at 5:30 p.m. For more information about this panel and other Ideas on Tap programs, contact MHC Program & Outreach Officer John Spann.
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Host site coordinators for the upcoming tour of the Smithsonian traveling exhibit Crossroads: Change in Rural America gathered at the Mississippi Library Commission March 20-21 for training. Stay tuned for details regarding the Crossroads tour, August 2023-June 2024! | |
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Behind the Big House Returns to Holly Springs
Preserve Marshall County and Holly Springs will be bringing back its award-winning “Behind the Big House” program for its 10th year on April 20-22. The program, which brings in acclaimed speakers and scholars like Joseph McGill of the Slave Dwelling Project, James Beard-award winning food historian Michael Twitty, and Dr. Jodi Skipper of the University of Mississippi, offers compelling “living history” tours that highlight the experience of enslaved people during Holly Springs’ antebellum period. The MHC has been a proud sponsor of "Behind the Big House" since the program’s founding.
This year, all of the historical interpretation activities will take place at the Hugh Craft House (184 S. Memphis Street) now owned by the Rosa Foundation, which is partnering with Preserve Marshall County on the event. These will include outside open fire cooking demonstrations with Michael Twitty, special tours of the slave quarters led by Joseph McGill, demonstrations of 19th century brick making by local artisans Wayne Jones and Dale DeBerry, and a living history presentation about an enslaved laundress by professional storyteller Tammy Gibson.
Since it was launched in 2013, Behind the Big House has set a standard for incorporating the history of enslavement and the experiences of enslaved people into tours of antebellum homes. While centered in the small town of Holly Springs, the program has influenced many communities across Mississippi that have been inspired to tell a fuller story by documenting and interpreting their remaining slave dwellings.
To learn more about Mississippi’s original “Behind the Big House” program and to see a full schedule, visit: https://preservemarshallcounty.org/behind-the-big-house.
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Video: Dr. Ebony Lumumba visits Mississippi State Penitentiary for Prison Book Club | |
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Philosophy, Race, and the Arts in Lucy Negro Redux Conference
Lucy Negro, Redux (Ampersand Books, 2015) by Caroline Randall Williams, who received an MFA at the University of Mississippi, explores the possibility that the "Dark Lady" William Shakespeare describes in his 1609 collection of sonnets was a Black prostitute who owned a brothel in central London. Through her poetry collection, Williams also questions how the desire for the Black female body has evolved from the Elizabethan age to the Jim Crow South to the modern era. Four years after Lucy was released to great acclaim, Paul Vasterling, artistic director at Nashville Ballet, collaborated with celebrated musician Rhiannon Giddens and Grammy Award-winning composer Francesco Turrisi to live-score an adaptation of Williams' poetry for ballet, which debuted in February 2019.
Next week, March 31-April 2, the Shackhouls Honors College at Mississippi State University will host a three-day public conference inspired by Williams’ poetry to examine how Black women’s stories have frequently been excluded from the cultural cannon. The conference, entitled "Philosophy, Race, and the Arts in Nashville Ballet's Lucy Negro Redux," is supported with a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council. The entire conference is free and open to the public, and will address topics including “Tracing Blackness in Shakespeare Performance” and “The Black Female as Nature/Body in the European Imagination.” Caroline Randall Williams will participate in a roundtable discussion with Choreographer Vasterling, as well as Kayla Rowser who was the original Lucy in the ballet adaptation of Lucy Negro, Redux, which will be followed by a free public screening of Nashville Ballet’s performance of Lucy Negro, Redux.
Conference events will take place at various locations on the MSU campus in Starkville. A program schedule is available here and other conference details can be found here. The ballet adaptation of Lucy Negro, Redux can be streamed now on the PBS web site.
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Upcoming MHC-Sponsored Events
Public Humanities Awards
March 24, 5:30 p.m.
Two Mississippi Museums, Jackson
The Mississippi Humanities Council announced the winners of its 2023 Public Humanities Awards recognizing outstanding work in preserving and sharing Mississippi’s unique history and culture. The awards ceremony will be held March 24, 2023 at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. Tickets can be purchased at mshumanities.org.
Learn More
Mississippi Banned Books Festival
March 25, 9:00 a.m.
Millsaps College, Jackson
Increasingly, multitudes of books have been banned from public school libraries for their subject matter—for example, exploring racial justice and injustice, documenting investigative reporting and navigating difficult experiences through memoir. In reaction to these rising bans, the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Millsaps College Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Center (TRHT), and the ACLU are collaborating to sponsor a festival with authors of banned books sharing their stories.
Learn More
The Twenty-Ninth Oxford Conference for the Book
March 29 – 31
The Overby Center, Oxford
Founded by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and Square Books, the Oxford Conference for the Book brings together fiction and nonfiction writers, journalists, artists, poets, publishers, teachers, students, and literacy advocates for three days of conversation in the literary town of Oxford, Mississippi.
Learn More
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Martha Swain Speaker Series Book Signing
March 30, 7:00 p.m.
Friendly City Books, Columbus
Meet author and historian Anastasia C. Curwood and get a signed copy of her new biography of Shirley Chisholm at Friendly City Books in downtown Columbus. Chisolm was a trailblazing politician and Black feminist, and Curwood will discuss her life and impact at 7:00 pm on The W’s campus. In addition to her biography, Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics, Curwood is the author of Stormy Weather: Middle-Class African American Marriages between the Two World Wars.
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Creating Space for Lucy
March 31 – April 2
Mississippi State University, Starkville
Mississippi State University will host this conference intended to bring together the artist who created Nashville Ballet’s Lucy Negro Redux with both senior and junior scholars in academic fields important for thinking through different aspects of it.
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Shell-Carving with Alex Alvarez
April 1, 1:00 p.m.
Liberal Arts Building - USM, Hattiesburg
The Center of American Indian Research and Studies (CAIRS) at The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) is partnering with the Mississippi Humanities Council, WECAN (Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network) and the Telenutrition Center to present several events throughout the year at the Medicine Wheel Garden, located on the USM Hattiesburg campus behind the Liberal Arts Building.
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25th Annual Sammy O. Cranford Memorial History Lecture
April 13, 7:00 p.m.
Jobe Auditorium – DSU, Cleveland
Dr. Ted Ownby, William Winter Professor of History and Professor of Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, will deliver a lecture entitled “Mississippi’s Jean Valjean: Chasing, Celebrating, and Maybe Pardoning an Escaped Convict in 1909.”
Learn More
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Behind the Big House Program & Tour
April 20 – April 22
Holly Springs, MS
Behind the Big House is one of few historic site tours developed with the specific goal of interpreting slavery. The program began with several private homeowners in Holly Springs, Mississippi, who opened slave houses on their properties to the public. Since 2012, the program has educated thousands in North Mississippi and Arkansas. This year, Preserve Marshall County & Holly Springs, Inc. will continue to provide a more complete narrative of our town and its history, as a template for others to follow.
Learn More
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