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Civil Rights Heritage Development
in the Mississippi Delta
Special supplement to The Delta Center Newsletter
A publication of The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University
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The National Park Service (NPS) is conducting a Mississippi Civil Rights Sites Special Resource Study.
NPS is gathering information about civil rights related sites in Mississippi and reporting their findings to Congress.
Initial Mississippi Delta sites include key landmarks of the Emmett Till murder such as Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, MS, and Bryant's Grocery Store in Money, MS.
NPS is considering additional civil rights sites in the Mississippi Delta and throughout the state. To gather public input, NPS is hosting a series of statewide open house meetings.
The two open house meetings listed below are scheduled in the Mississippi Delta.
Monday, May 7, 2018
11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
The Delta Center for Culture and Learning/
Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area
Delta State University
Jacob Conference Center, Ewing Hall
Highway 8 West
Cleveland, Mississippi 38733
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Monday, May 7, 2018
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Tallahatchie County Courthouse
401 West Court Street
Sumner, Mississippi 38957
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Click here for the full schedule of statewide open house meetings.
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"Beautiful Agitators":
The Untold Story of Vera Mae Piggee
The creators of the civil rights play, "Beautiful Agitators," are presenting a staged reading at Jobe Hall Auditorium, Delta State University, on Sunday, April 29, 2018, at 2:00 p.m.
Headquartered at her beauty shop on Ashton Street in downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi, Vera Mae Pigee played a crucial role during the civil rights movement in the Delta. While her name isn't figured as prominently in history books as other local luminaries, Pigee was an instrumental figure in the fight for equality in Mississippi: from her efforts organizing direct action with young people to registering thousands of African Americans to vote.
Based on interviews, research and reporting by young journalists in Clarksdale, "Beautiful Agitators" is an original play that explores the history of Pigee's activism and the legacy that her work left behind.
This event is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Support for the staged reading of "Beautiful Agitators" comes from Mississippi Today; Mississippi Humanities Council; Coahoma Collective; Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting; and The Delta Center for Culture and Learning and Delta Music Institute at Delta State University.
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Delta Center hosts Lens Collective:
Civil Rights heritage stories of the Mississippi Delta
For a second year, The Delta Center recently hosted the Lens Collective Multimedia Conference. Organized by the University of Mississippi's Meek School of Journalism and New Media, this year's Lens Collective engaged 38 photojournalism students and 15 mentors from eight universities across the country to document several civil rights heritage stories in the Mississippi Delta. Schools represented include
American University,
Arkansas State University,
Jackson State University,
Middle Tennessee State University,
Ohio University,
Penn State University,
University of Mississippi, and
West Virginia University.
Working with their mentors, the students created over a dozen film shorts that tell civil rights heritage stories. Film topics range from storied places like Country Platter restaurant in Cleveland where civil rights activists gathered during the movement to significant people like civil rights activists Aaron Henry and the Luckett family.
As the Lens Collective's Delta-based partner, The Delta Center provided a tour of the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden in Ruleville and historic sites in the historically black town of Mound Bayou. Through support from the Sam Block-Amzie Moore Endowment Fund, The Delta Center also hosted a dinner conversation with cultural heritage tourism supporter Senator Willie Simmons and civil rights activist Charles McLaurin of Indianola, who spoke about his experiences working with Fannie Lou Hamer and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The dinner was held at The Senator's Place restaurant in Cleveland. Additional support for the event came from the City of Cleveland.
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A week later, The Delta Center held a public screening of the Lens Collective films at Delta State University's Baioni Conference Center in conjunction with Civil Rides, a rural poverty awareness group bicycle ride commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The group followed in the footsteps of Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson. While in Cleveland, the group joined Delta State community members to view the Lens Collective civil rights heritage films.
The Civil Rides Lens Collective screening was jointly sponsored by The Delta Center and Delta State's Winning the Race Conference, Quality Enhancement Plan, and Diversity Committee.
Click below to view some of the Lens Collective civil rights film shorts. To view all of the films, visit the website at www.lenscollective.org.
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Lens Collective Short Films
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The Delta Center for Culture and Learning |
662-846-4311
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