The Fannie Lou Hamer Institute @ COFO: Human and Civil Rights Interdisciplinary Education Center, part of the College of Liberal Arts at Jackson State University, recently received a grant supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the amount of $216,000 to conduct a summer institute for university and college teachers to study the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement.
Director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute Dr. Rico D. Chapman said, “It is a great honor to have been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant award gives us the opportunity to highlight the pivotal role that local Mississippians played in the Civil Rights movement and showcase Jackson State University.”
The NEH is a federal agency that supports enrichment opportunities at colleges, universities and cultural institutions, so that faculty can work in collaboration and study with experts in humanities disciplines.
“This grant is also particularly timely in that the Chairman of NEH, William D. Adams, will be delivering the keynote address at the College of Liberal Arts 2016 Conference on Oct. 7, thus giving us an opportunity to thank him for the award publicly,” said Chapman, who is also interim chair of the Department of History and Philosophy.
The summer institute is titled “Mississippi in the National Civil Rights Narrative” will be held over a three-week period at Jackson State from June 11-30, 2017.
The summer institute highlights the various narratives of the Civil Rights Movement while bringing the Mississippi and national stories together. To provide essential context, the institute will briefly survey the history of African Americans from slavery through the crucibles of the Civil War and Reconstruction and during the dark journey of Jim Crow.
Key moments will be examined to clarify and explain why a massive and successful movement for freedom emerged after 1954. Specifically, participants will explore in great depth the struggle for freedom in Mississippi while comparing it to significant events in other parts of the American South, creating an analysis that addresses the power of the older national narrative and integrating the newer one, which is based on community struggle.
Institute participants will engage in thought-provoking discussions and lectures led by veteran civil rights activists and scholars and travel to prominent historic sites, such as Fannie Lou Hamer’s home in Ruleville, Mississippi and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis located at the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated.
By the end of the institute, summer scholars would have placed the local within the national narrative, providing new analytical tools for understanding the transformative impact of the Civil Rights Movement.
The 25 college and university faculty members selected to participate in the program will each receive a stipend of $2700 to cover their travel, study, and living expenses.
For more information, please visit: www.jsums.edu/HamerInstitute/neh-summer-institute