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COFO Civil Rights Education Center

NEH Institutes for College and University Teachers

The NEH summer institute is entitled “Mississippi in the National Civil Rights Narrative” The three-week program was held at Jackson State University in Summer 2017.

The summer institute highlights the various narratives of the Civil Rights Movement, while bringing the Mississippi and national stories together.  To provide essential context, the institute will briefly survey the history of African Americans from slavery through the crucibles of the Civil War and Reconstruction and during the dark journey of Jim Crow. Key moments will be examined to clarify and explain why a massive and successful Movement for freedom emerged after 1954. Specifically, participants will explore in great depth the struggle for freedom in Mississippi while comparing it to significant events in other parts of the American South, creating an analysis that addresses the power of the older national narrative and integrating the newer one, which is based on community struggle.  The participants will engage in thought-provoking discussions and lectures led by veteran civil rights activists and scholars and travel to prominent historic sites, such as the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and Fannie Lou Hamer’s home in Ruleville, Mississippi. By the end of the institute,  summer scholars would have placed the local within the national narrative, providing new analytical tools for understanding the transformative impact of the Civil Rights Movement.

The 25 college and university faculty selected to participate in the program each receive a stipend to cover their travel, study, and living expenses.