{"id":5029,"date":"2026-02-02T22:58:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/?p=5029"},"modified":"2026-02-02T22:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:59:15","slug":"1980s-forum-rings-true-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/2026\/02\/02\/1980s-forum-rings-true-today\/","title":{"rendered":"1980s Forum Rings True Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">As we examine legacies of commemoration and ongoing discussions centered around Black History Month, we&#8217;re featuring a collection of speeches presented at the &#8220;Heritage for New America&#8221; public forum, funded by the Mississippi Committee for the Humanities (now the Mississippi Humanities Council) at Jackson State in February 1980. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The forum was centered around the question, &#8220;Should the state of Mississippi require that all students, K-12 be taught Afro-American History?&#8221; The speeches\u2014given by scholars, educators, and the directors of cultural institutes\u2014ranged from practical approaches regarding curriculum implementation to the philosophical and cultural importances of teaching Black History.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Dr. Alferdteen Harrison, former director of the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People (now the Margaret Walker Center), served as the forum&#8217;s project director. Her introduction to the collection leaves us with a call to action that is still applicable today: &#8220;Hopefully this reproduction of these speeches will reach a larger audience and continue to generate more discussions on the questions raised by the forum.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Help us fulfill this goal by viewing the PDFs below and reading some of the speeches! Then, head to our social media to share your reflections and impressions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/files\/2026\/02\/Teaching-Afro-American-History-in-MS-K-12-1980_compressedpart1.pdf\">View PDF (first half of collection)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/files\/2026\/02\/Teaching-Afro-American-History-in-MS-K-12-1980_compressedpart2.pdf\">View PDF (second half of collection)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we examine legacies of commemoration and ongoing discussions centered around Black History Month, we&#8217;re featuring a collection of speeches presented at the &#8220;Heritage for New America&#8221; public forum, funded by the Mississippi Committee for the Humanities (now the Mississippi Humanities Council) at Jackson State in February 1980. The forum was centered around the question, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":454,"featured_media":5030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[26,1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5034,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5029\/revisions\/5034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/margaretwalkercenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}