Mississippi Humanities Council

HTA - Unvexed to the Sea: The Impact of the Siege of Vicksburg on the Civil War and Mississippi
2022-02-22 13:30 - 15:00 (America/Chicago) | Northwest Mississippi Community College, 4975 Hwy 51 N, Senatobia, 38668
Humanities Teacher Award winner Chris Tingle (Northwest Mississippi Community College) will present his public lecture, “Unvexed to the Sea: The Impact of the Siege of Vicksburg on the Civil War and Mississippi.” This presentation will take place at the Haraway Center on the NWMCC Senatobia Campus and also be streamed via Zoom. Reception to follow.
One of the most critical episodes of the Civil War was the Vicksburg campaign. When Confederate troops surrendered the city of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, the South lost its last stronghold on the Mississippi River. The action around Vicksburg is not only a fascinating study in military history, but also a harrowing look at the effects that siege tactics have on a civilian population. The Vicksburg campaign is an important focal point in both Civil War and Mississippi history.

SB - Baughn - Separate But Equal?: African American Schools in Mississippi
2022-02-17 12:00 - 13:30 | School of Health Related Professions Building, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, United States
Mississippi’s African American school buildings still occupy the center of their communities, recalling the struggles of segregation but also the attempts to overcome it. African American attempts to gain parity with white schools in the 1920s with assistance from the Julius Rosenwald Fund gave way to stagnation during the Great Depression, when many consolidated white schools were built with federal grants. By the 1950s, threats from the Civil Rights movement forced the Mississippi Legislature to fund a massive “Equalization Program” that built sprawling consolidated campuses in every county in the state in an effort to create a segregated system that was truly “separate but equal.”

HTA - The Case for Code-Meshing in the Community College Classroom
2022-02-17 11:00 - 12:00 | Mississippi Delta Community College, Hwy 3 & Cherry St., Moorhead, MS, 38761, United States
Humanities Teacher Award winner Jenni Hargett (Mississippi Delta Community College) will present her public lecture, “The Case for Code-Meshing in the Community College Classroom.” This Presentation will be held on the MDCC Moorhead Campus, Fine Arts Auditorium. Reception to follow.

Volunteer MUW Student Panel
2022-02-16 18:30 - 19:30 | Online Event
Part of the Black History Month Lecture Series presented by The Mississippi University for Women.
Zoom Details located on the flyer.

Fannie Lou Hamer's America: Meet the Makers
2022-02-15 14:00 - 15:00 | Online Event
Register here: https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oSy06GrLShO4G27IqhAoyg?fbclid=IwAR0M6_1yd5QfI738qdU5Dh02OfuDmujrPBiVM7F5PnVLoSJKLKb5IO2P634

Honoring the Unsung Heroes and Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement in Natchez, MS
2022-02-12 12:00 - 13:00 | Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church, 607 Madison St., Natchez, MS, 39120, United States
This annual public event will honor civil rights activists who played a vital role in the movement but did not receive the attention or recognition that was given to other more prominent participants. The activists will be honored with a plaque that lists each of their names. During the program, the activists will be asked to share their memories of the movement. This event will include a guest speaker, Ms. Dora P. Hawkins, Trustee Emeritus of Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church.

HTA - The Internet - Past, Present, and Future
2022-02-11 13:00 - 14:00 | Southwest Mississippi Community College, 1156 College Drive, Summit, MS, 39666
Humanities Teacher Award winner Ron Wilson (Southwest Mississippi Community College) will present his public lecture, “The Internet – Past, Present, and Future.” Presentation will be held in the Horace C. Holmes Student Union Auditorium. Reception to follow.
This presentation will consist of an overview of the history and development of the Internet from the 1960’s to present day, a look at the infrastructure that makes up the internet, a discussion of some of the cultural impacts of the internet, and some considerations of what the future of the internet might hold.

Octavia E. Butler’s Vision for Communal Healing
2022-02-07 18:00 - 19:00 | Online Event

Isabella and the Prince: Overcoming Struggle through Courage and Faith
2022-02-04 19:00 - 20:30 | Prince Ibrahim

HTA - From Handprints on Cave Walls to Posting on Social Media; Seeking Validation Through our Personal Narratives
2022-02-04 10:00 - 11:00 | Meridian Community College, 910 Hwy 19 N, Meridian, MS, 39307
Humanities Teacher Award winner Anne Lacy Johnson (Meridian Community College) will present her public lecture, “From Handprints on Cave Walls to Posting on Social Media; Seeking Validation Through our Personal Narratives.” This presentation will be held in the McCain Theater. Reception to follow.
Our personal narratives inspire art, music, and prose. The theme of my presentation is; “From Handprints on cave walls, to posting on Social Media; seeking validation through our personal narrative.” I’ll take you on a journey through life, how our personal stores inspire, distract, influence, lead and guide our life. Come see what your handprint tells others about you!

Toni Morrison and Resurrections of Blackness and the Literary Imagination
2022-02-03 18:30 - 19:30 | Online Event
Part of the Black History Month Lecture Series presented by The Mississippi University for Women.
Zoom Details located on flyer.

HTA - The Sound: Analog Vs Digital Audio and How Microphones Work for Broadcast Journalists
2022-02-02 14:30 - 15:30 | JD Boyd Library, 1000 ASU Drive, Lorman, MS, 39096
Humanities Teacher Award winner Dr. Eric Dogini (Alcorn State University) will present his public lecture, “The Sound: Analog Vs Digital Audio and How Microphones Work for Broadcast Journalists.” This presentation will be held in the JD Boyd Library Auditorium. Reception to follow.
Sound is the most fundamental building block of music, radio, television, and film and begins when something vibrates. Analog signal is an electrical copy of the original vibration incited into a microphone. Analog signal fluctuates like the original vibration, and it is continuous and rarely skips any part of the signal. Digital signal is discontinuous and does not process the total original signal incited into microphone, it skips from one point of the signal to the next, selecting a great number of successive points that represents the original signal. The microphones transduce (transform) sound waves into electric energy – the audio signal/sound we hear on radio, television, movies, and music, paging in public place and a two-way communication via phone. To understand how microphones work broadcast journalist from the physical and engineering points of view, we must understand the basics of sound transmission.

HTA - Health and Social Wellbeing: The Benefits of Bookreading
2022-02-01 12:15 - 13:15 | Pearl River Community College – Forrest County Campus, 5448 US 49, Hattiesburg, MS, 39401, United States
Humanities Teacher Award winner Heather Peerboom (Pearl River Community College) will present her public lecture, “Health and Social Wellbeing: The Benefits of Bookreading”. This presentation will be held in the PRCC Forrest County Center. Reception to follow.
The average time Americans spend reading has been in steady decline. At the same time, many administrators are making the argument for removing literature from the list of required core curricula. This presentation responds to that argument by exploring the personal and social benefits of reading literature.

HTA - The Journey Home: Literary Narratives and PTSD
2022-01-28 11:00 - 13:00 | Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, 2226 Switzer Road, Gulfport, MS, 39507, United States
Humanities Teacher Award winner Dr. Tammy Townsend (Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College) will present her public lecture, “The Journey Home: Literary Narratives and PTSD”. This presentation will be held on the Harrison County campus in Building U, Room 202.
The presentation will cover how cognitive therapy exists in psychoanalysis sessions and in English classes. According to new research, reading literary narratives makes us better people. Through the study of classic literary narratives, we share the hero’s journey and learn how to order our own experiences into a coherent narrative that helps us put ourselves into the context of our lives.

Remembering Emmett Till in the Mississippi Delta: Documenting Till Commemoration through Oral Histories
2022-01-27 13:30 - 14:30 | Online Event
Join the Emmett Till Interpretive Center to discuss the importance of documenting Civil Rights stories in the Mississippi Delta, specifically around Emmett Till and how his life and memory have been commemorated.

The event will include clips from oral history interviews gathered as part of a MS Humanities Council oral history grant-funded project, an excerpt from a documentary on local leader Jerome Little, and a panel discussion with the filmmakers and Dr. Dave Tell, author of Remembering Emmett Till.

HTA - "What Are You Looking At?"
2022-01-21 11:00 - 12:30 | Smith Hall, Room 109
Humanities Teacher Award winner Ashley Dugas (Copiah-Lincoln Community College) will present her public lecture, “What Are You Looking At?”. This presentation will be held in Smith Hall, Room 109. Refreshments to be served.

Charles Edward Williams: FORWARD Live Performance
2022-01-01 | Muddy Springs Church, Muddy Springs Rd, Magnolia, MS, 39652, United States
Artist Charles Williams will visit McComb to present a live performance of his project FORWARD.
Details TBA
Sign up for Updates Here: http://psa-ms.org/forward/

Topophilia Book Club Meeting - Providence
2021-12-09 18:00 - 19:30, 2021-12-08 11:45 - 13:00 | Museum of the Mississippi Delta, 1608 Hwy 82 West, Greenwood, MS, 38930
The Museum of the Mississippi Delta announces the creation of the Topophilia Book Club, whose purpose is to connect readers to this region through a thoughtfully curated selection of books with a connection to this land. Six books have been chosen for the upcoming year and the discussions will be led by local physician, author and historian, Dr. Mary Carol Miller.The book club will meet bi-monthly to discuss fiction and non-fiction books connected to the Mississippi Delta. In addition to book discussions, other programs related to the book selections will be hosted by the Museum. The books are selected in advance and planned for the entire year, often coordinating with the Museum’s exhibition schedule. A list of the 2021-2022 selections is attached.
December: Providence by Will D. Campbell
February: When Evil Lived in Laurel by Curtis Wilke
April: Goat Castle by Karen L. Cox
June: TBD
August: Delta Epiphany by Ellen Meacham
October: TBD

Ideas On Tap: What Does Critical Race Theory Mean in Mississippi?
2021-12-09 17:30 - 19:00 | Ecoshed, 133 Commerce Park Drive, Jackson, MS, 39213, United States
The national debate over “critical race theory” has come to Mississippi. Join us for an interactive, civil conversation at the @ecoshedjxn on December 9th at 5:30, on how we should teach about our state’s history of racism. How do we provide, as former Governor Phil Bryant recently advocated, “an education where students can openly and honestly acknowledge the continuing remnants of racism in our society and make sure all children are grounded in the basic principles of civics and democracy needed to address them fully and finally.” Our panelists for this discussion will include Vidhi Bamzai, Deidre Alexander, and Chauncey Spears. Kaleigh Skinner of Mississippi Today will moderate this important discussion. This program will be in person and masks are highly suggested.

SB - Jernigan - Mississippi Telling
2021-11-13 09:00 - 17:00 | MoMS1
The presenter provides an overview of the storytelling Renaissance in America with emphasis upon the oral tradition in Mississippi. The literary tradition of Mississippi owes much to the rich storytelling legacy that riddles the tales of our families and our communities as reflected in the works of many of our best authors: Welty, Wright, Faulkner, Henley, Williams. As part of the presentation, Dr. Jernigan performs as a story teller calling upon on her rich repertoire of original tales and literary masterpieces gearing her choices of tales according to her audience and offers material for children and adults.

Brennan Collins Discussion Program - Historical Society of Gulfport
2021-11-11 18:00 - 19:00 | Vestry, 11213 US 49, Gulfport, MS, 39503, United States
The Historical Society of Gulfport will meet Thursday, November 11, 2021, from 6-7 pm at the Vestry (formerly St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church).
Brennan Collins, Research Center Coordinator, will discuss his role in establishing the Gulfport Museum of History Research Center and his work with the Mississippi Digital Library.
Currently a graduate student in the University of Southern Mississippi’s School of Master of Library and Information Science, he is credited with making the Ralph Bean Architectural Collection the museum’s initial entry in the Mississippi Digital Library.
The research center and Brennan’s part-time position were funded by a grant through the American Rescue Plan, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mississippi Humanities Council.

Community Meeting- Natchez US Colored Troops Monument Project
2021-11-10 18:00 - 20:00 | Natchez Convention Center, 211 Main Street, Natchez, MS, 39120
The public is invited to attend a community meeting on the Natchez US Colored Troops Monument project at 6:00pm on Wednesday, Nov. 10th at the Natchez Convention Center. The purpose of this meeting is to gather public input on the proposed monument project that will honor the more than 3,000 African American men who served with the six regiments at Fort McPherson in Natchez.

“Light in the Piazza” Conversation
2021-11-03 08:00 - 17:00 | Paris-Yates Chapel, 60 Chapel Lane, University, MS, 38677, United States
At noon Nov. 3 in the Paris-Yates Chapel on the University of Mississippi campus, Adam Guettel, Blake McIver and Mary Donnelly Haskell will have a conversation about Elizabeth Spencer’s novella “The Light in the Piazza,” which was made into a musical.
In celebration of Mississippi writer Elizabeth Spencer’s one hundredth birthday, the University of Mississippi Department of Music is staging a November 2021 production of “The Light in the Piazza,” a musical based on Spencer’s novella of the same name. In conjunction with this production, the department is presenting Piazza composer, lyricist, and orchestrator Adam Guettel in a residency of public programing that explores Spencer, her novella, Guettel’s rationale for and process of creating a musical from Spencer’s work, and the themes, characters and concepts revealed in both pieces.
Guettel is a composer steeped in the opera and musical theatre traditions of America. The grandson of Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein) and son of writer/composer Mary Rodgers, Guettel is well-versed in the history of American musical theatre forms. As a Tony Award-winning composer in his own right, his work is helping move those forms forward. “The Light in the Piazza” was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won six, including two for Guettel for original score and orchestration.

Fighting Sexism, Racism and Corruption in the Community with the Guerilla Girls
2021-10-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Online Event
Mississippi University for Women will partner with the Guerrilla Girls, a group of feminist activists that uses political art to fight sexism, racism and corruption in society, for a virtual event at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 28, on Zoom.
The event is a collaboration between the Ina E. Gordy Honors College, the NEW Leadership Mississippi program, the National Organization of Women (NOW) chapter at The W, the Fant Memorial Library, the MUW Galleries and the Departments of History, Art and Languages, Literature & Philosophy. Drouillard, who is the project director/organizer of the event, said local businesses Friendly City Books and the Columbus Arts Council and Colin Krieger, who was voted “local hero in the Golden Triangle 2021,” also will help promote the event.

From Delta Blues to Opera News: A Mississippi Musical Exposition
2021-10-24 08:00 - 2021-10-25 17:00 | Online Event
Details TBA

SB - Giesen - Boll Weevil Blues: Cotton and Myth in Mississippi
2021-10-19 16:00 | East Mississippi Community College – Scooba Campus, 1512 Kemper Street, Scooba, MS, 39358
In the early 20th century the cotton boll weevil, a nasty little beetle that had already destroyed millions of pounds of cotton in Texas and Louisiana, stood on the western banks of the Mississippi River poised to invade the richest and most important cotton land in the world: the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. In the months and years that followed the weevil made a major, but surprising, impact on the people of the state. Many Mississippians now think of it as a terrible natural disaster, akin to Hurricane Katrina or the BP Oil Spill. Yet history reveals a much more surprising story. The boll weevil destroyed tons of cotton across the state, but its biggest effect on Mississippi came not from barren fields, but from how people responded to the threat of its invasion. Stories about the boll weevil, in other words, were more important to its history than the stands of cotton it destroyed. Dr. Giesen’s presentation uses blues and country songs, old family stories, rumors and more traditional historical records, to explain how an array of Mississippians — from sharecroppers to planters to college professors — changed the course of the state’s history as they tried to manage the boll weevil’s invasion.

2021 MS Delta Tennessee Williams Festival
2021-10-14 16:00 - 2021-10-16 20:00 | Cutrer Mansion, 109 Clark St, Clarksdale, MS, 38614, United States
The 29th Annual Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival seeks to build on last year’s successful virtual festival with a hybrid in-person socially distanced festival that will stream all the programming on two web platforms.This year’s theme is on the exchange of culture, history, and music along the Mississippi River, from the Delta to New Orleans using Willliams’ A Streetcar Named Desire as the organizing hub for performances, presentations, and workshops.

SB - Mitchell - A New History of Mississippi
2021-10-10 16:00 | Trinity Episcopal Church, 305 S. Commerce St., Natchez, MS, 39120
The talk, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, will present the case for a new understanding of Mississippi’s past. The speaker will argue that the Eurocentric past account ignored the role of blacks, Indians, women and minorities, providing example biographies to prove the case. Touching on neglected topics such as the history of the ecology, the speaker will demonstrate the dire condition created by the near destruction of the environment and illustrate how the New Deal programs and a few individuals began to restore the state and develop its system of state parks. Touching on the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, the speaker will argue that segregation was a complex, local system open to negotiation for much of its history and that local Mississippians did most of the work to end segregation rather than the more heralded outsiders, who have received much of the credit in the past. The speaker will trace the evolution of religion including what some historians term the civic religion of the lost cause. Concluding the lecture, the speaker will make the case for Mississippians adopting a new perspective on their past.

Civil War: Who Do We Think We Are? - Screening and Panel Discussion
2021-10-06 17:30 - 19:30 | TWO MISSISSIPPI MUSEUMS, 222 NORTH STREET , JACKSON, MS, United States
On October 6, the MHC will partner with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to host a screening and panel discussion of the documentary film Civil War (or Who Do We Think We Are?) at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. The film, created and produced by Rachel Boynton, addresses Civil War memory and how the Reconstruction period is portrayed in education.
In making the film, Boynton interviewed educators, community leaders, politicians, and students across the South. Among those Boynton interviewed were Missy Jones of Mississippi College, Atwayn Patrick of the Holmes County Consolidated School District, and Dr. Stephanie Rolph of Millsaps College. All three Mississippians share their approaches in educating their students and general public on the Civil War through historical facts. They also discuss the struggle as educators to correct the Lost Cause narrative in a place like Mississippi.
The film is timely and aids in the current conversation about how and what we should remember of the Civil War. Boynton asks the viewer to question what they think they know of the Civil War and challenges them to re-educate themselves, hopefully with more diverse resources.
The panel discussion to follow the screening will include Boynton, Jones, Patrick, and Rolph. Long-time educator and administrator within the state department of education, Chauncey Spears, will also be included. The goal of the panel discussion is to not only discuss themes from the film, but also to understand the current climate on Civil War and Reconstruction education within Mississippi schools.
The program will be held in the Neilson Auditorium within the Two Mississippi Museums and will begin with the film screening at 5:30 p.m. followed by the panel discussion. Food and beverage will be served. Due COVID-19, masks will be enforced at this event.
