FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2024
From the Super Bowl to the Rose Bowl
JSU Student Center Theater
Streaming on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jsutv/
3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Free and open to the public, the 2024 CASE Festival will feature members of the Sonic Boom of the South—Bryan McKinney, Justus Merkerson, Anthony Duncan, and Treasure White—in an opening plenary conversation and reception in the JSU Student Center Theater at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 5. The Sonic Boom made national headlines with a special appearance this year with eight-time Grammy-winning artist Usher during the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, they have been invited to participate in the 136th Tournament of Roses Parade presented by Honda on Wednesday, January 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California.
Thee Road to the Roses: Fundraising Reception
JSU Student Center 2nd Floor Meditation Room
4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 6, 2024
Registration and Q&A: Continental Breakfast
JSU Student Center
8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
The Margaret Walker Center invited student proposals for papers, presentations, and panels for the 18th Annual CASE Festival. The following schedule reflects those presentations. Although the focus is on Black women writers and the Black Arts Movement, the organizers welcomed proposals from high school, undergraduate, and graduate students on any topic.
Concurrent Session I: Student Presentations
Zoom and JSU Student Center rooms 3210 and 3241
9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
Panel 1: Written
JSU Student Center room 3210
The Evolution of Lynchings in Mississippi
Khloe Robinson, JPS-Tougaloo Early College High School
Odysseys of Black Women During the American Civil War
Layah McDonald, Jackson State University
Felony Disfranchisement: The Effect on the Minority Vote
Kennadie Boykin, Helayna Loggins, and Naya Singleton, Jackson State University
Moderator: Christina Thomas, Jackson State University
Panel 2: Written
Hybrid: Zoom & JSU Student Center room 3241
https://jacksonstateu.zoom.us/j/84497832114?pwd=TEEyU3AwMU10emNuNTZmNXRYaXUzUT09
Strive
Amira Wallace, Jackson State University
Afro-Alien Catalysts
Avin HannahSmith, Columbia College Chicago
For Colored Girls Writing to the Margin
Zia M. Dione, Pacific University
Moderator: Laura Miller, Jackson State University
Concurrent Session II: Student Presentations
Zoom, Johnson Hall Art Gallery, and JSU Student Center rooms 3241 and 3250
10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Panel 3: Visual Arts, Poetry
Johnson Hall Art Gallery
Reflection
“A Meditation on Greatness”
Anastasia Taylor, Jackson State University
14
Nykenzie Tillis, JPS-Tougaloo Early College High School
Echoes of the ‘60s and ‘70s: The Black Arts Movement
“Renaissance” “Love Da Band” “Just Charles”
Ty Washington, JPS-Tougaloo Early College High School
Rolling Stone
FVLLING
Devil has his hands on me
The Release
Daredevil
Tyler Goliday, Jackson State University
Moderator: Brittany Myburgh, Jackson State University
Panel 4: Poetry and Storytelling
Hybrid: Zoom and JSU Student Center room 3241
https://jacksonstateu.zoom.us/j/81353742073?pwd=ck1JMVpSSVdERStENzNTYlM1M0NiUT09
You Tell Me You Love Me
Janeth Jackson, University of Mississippi
Thank You to Those Who Stayed and Those Who Strayed in Mississippi
The Fundamentals of Engineering
Amber Spears, Jackson State University
Moderator: RaShell Smith-Spears, Jackson State University
Panel 5: Written
JSU Student Center room 3250
Me, My Writing, and the South
Kaitlyn Taylor, Jackson State University
Combatting the Miseducation Crisis Through Culturally Relevant Music Education
Nicholas Organ, Jackson State University
Courage, Comfort, and Country: A Mississippian’s Pathway to American Diplomacy
Tiffany Edmondson, Jackson State University
Moderator: Albert Dorsey, Jackson State University
Luncheon
JSU Student Center Ballroom
12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.
Concurrent Session III: Student Presentations
Zoom and JSU Student Center rooms 3210, 3241, and 3250
1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Panel 6: Written
Hybrid: Zoom & JSU Student Center room 3241
https://jacksonstateu.zoom.us/j/81303637143?pwd=UENVbC83V0gwVk5DeXNsbmxzVFJBdz09
The Bottom of the Totem Pole
Miriam Howard, Jackson State University
Francisco by Alison Mills Newman
Original Cover Photo: The Freedom Principle of Jazz in the form of Black Love
Leaf H. Seeney, Georgia State University
James Weldon Johnson and the Harlem Renaissance
Abhijit Sarmah, University of Georgia
Moderator: Janice Brockley, Jackson State University
Panel 7: Poetry, Spoken Word
JSU Student Center room 3210
Obsidian Roots
Pieces
On This Day
Before
Amira “Noralla” Wallace, Jackson State University
Who Said I Was a Cookie
Madison “Mocha” Hunter, University of Memphis
This Girl’s Been
Sage Martin, Murrah High School
Moderator: Anita DeRouen, Murrah High School
Panel 8: Written
JSU Student Center room 3250
Race, Gender and Intersectionality in U.S. Politics
Ezra Snell, Kennedy Pierce, and Christian Mannery, Jackson State University
Digging up the Past: Researching the Departure of JSU from State Street
Connor Sutton, Millsaps College
Equity vs. Equality: The Struggles of African American History in Public Education
Jeri Hill, Jackson State University
Moderator: Andrew Marion, Millsaps College
Tribute to Sonia Sanchez and Margaret Walker
with Ebony Lumumba, Danielle Littlefield, and Robert Luckett
Keynote Conversation and Closing Awards
JSU Student Center Theater
Streaming on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mwalkercenter
3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Winners for all awards will also be announced during the Closing Ceremony for the 2024 CASE Festival.
The best essay by a JSU student on the “Black experience in the American South” will receive the $1,000 Margaret Walker Annual Award. Submissions for the Margaret Walker Annual Award can be in various forms, including literary analysis, creative writing, research paper, biographical study, autobiography, and historical study.
The annual $500 Doris Derby Visual Arts and Social Justice Award will be presented to a student at any level from any institution whose contribution best reflects this year’s CASE Festival theme in the category of visual arts, including painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, and crafts.
This project is supported in part by funding from
the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and in part from
the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.