Teaching About the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

Greetings

Welcome to the monthly newsletter for Mississippi educators with stories and resources for teaching about the Civil Rights Movement and labor history.

Stories from Mississippi Teaching Fellows

My Students Convinced Me to Let Go

Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Labor History fellow Susan Nail (from the Kosciusko School District) describes how and why she shifted her teaching style from lecture to an interactive approach. Read here.

Southern Freedom Movement Workshop at NCSS Conference

At the 2015 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference in New Orleans, Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Labor History Teacher fellow Anthony Golding and fellowship director Julian Hipkins III presented a workshop on the freedom movement in Mississippi. More here .

Jacqueline Dace Visits Ashland High School

Juniors and seniors at Ashland High School learned about the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (due to be completed in 2017) from the project manager, Jacqueline Dace. More here .

Events, Student Competitions,
and Professional Development

Civil Rights Veterans Conference

The 11th Annual Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, Inc. Conference will take place at Tougaloo College from March 30 to April 2, 2016 with the theme "The Moral and Political Imperatives of Black Empowerment and Human Dignity."

Teachers and students are encouraged to register. More here.

Check out the Student Research and Creative Arts Competition for research or art that furthers racial, social, or economic justice. Deadline January 15, 2016. More information here .

Speak Truth to Power

The Speak Truth to Power Student Video Contest encourages middle and high school students to become engaged in human rights through film production. Deadline is February 21, 2016. More here.

Judges for Mississippi National History Day

The state contest for National History Day in Mississippi will be on March 5, 2016 at USM- Hattiesburg. Check back here in the coming weeks for registration details.

A wonderful way to support students is to serve as a judge for the projects focused on local history. Please contact Julian Hipkins III if you are willing to join our local history awards selection team on the morning of March 5.

"Most Southern Place" Teacher Institute

Applications are now open for a week-long residential institute on the history of the Mississippi Delta.

Mississippi Teacher Fellow Lynne Schneider says this was one of the best professional development institutes she has ever attended. Deadline is March 2, 2015 . More here .

Resources

	The Murder of Sammy Younge Jr. This week marks the 50th anniversary of the murder of SNCC volunteer and military veteran Sammy Younge Jr. He was shot and killed by a gas station attendant for trying to use a "whites only" restroom on January 3, 1966 in Alabama. Three days later (Jan. 6, 1966), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) released a powerful statement about the Vietnam War. More here .
	The Reconstruction Era The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy from Facing History and Ourselves provides educators with videos and lessons for teaching middle and high school students about the vital history of the Reconstruction era. More here .
	Freedom Now: The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi Freedom Now: The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, from Choices at Brown University, provides teachers and students with carefully selected readings and video clips on Mississippi history with a focus on the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights Movement. More here.
	How They Do in Oxford In this ESPN article, writer and Jackson native Kiese Laymon describes his observations on race relations in Mississippi during a University of Mississippi football game. Laymon served as the 2015-2016 John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence. Read here .
	Freedom Summer and Neshoba County, Jim Lucas Photos As a young photojournalist, Jim Lucas assisted a CBS news crew during the search for James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. His photographs, in this online exhibit , depict the search and the ultimate discovery of the bodies of the murdered workers and other events during the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.
	Wednesdays in Mississippi: Civil Rights as Women's Work Wednesdays in Mississippi (WIMS) brought interracial, interfaith teams of northern middle-aged, middle- and upper-class women to Jackson, Mississippi, in the summer of 1964, to meet with their southern counterparts. A project of the NCNW, students can learn about the history of WIMS and see primary documents on the website hosted by t he University of Houston Center for Public History. Learn more here .

News

Criminalizing Blackness: A Mississippi Community College's School-to-Jail Pipeline

On September 2, 2015, Hinds Community College student Akinola Gonzalez was arrested for "failure to obey a citation" and wearing his pants below the waistline. His sister Dara Cooper wrote in Truthout, "He was moved to the city of Raymond, Mississippi, which is extracting forced labor from countless Black people, who are kept in holding cells for misdemeanors." More here .

What Paris Can Learn From a Mississippi Co-op

Members of Cooperation Jackson were invited to participate in the 2015 Conference of the Parties climate talks in Paris. Read more here .

In Search Of

Seeking Videographer

Teaching for Change is looking for a videographer to create a three to four minute film that demonstrates how engaged students are when introduced to Mississippi's unsung heroes through interactive lessons. More here .

Contact

For More Information

We welcome Civil Rights Movement teaching stories and photos from Mississippi teachers to feature in this monthly e-newsletter.

To learn more, submit stories, or share comments, write to p roject director Julian Hipkins III . Hipkins is also available to offer teacher workshops in Mississippi schools and pre- or in-service programs. Learn more here.

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This monthly e-newsletter is produced by Teaching for Change with funding from

the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Open Society Foundations.