Jackson State University students and faculty burst into song Monday as part of Founder’s Week activities at the conclusion of a panel discussion that focused on the history of JSU.
Thee I love, My dear ole college home …” during Founders Week activities Monday at JSU. (Photos by Charles A. Smith)
Festivities continue at 11:30 today with a panel discussion on The Women in the History of Jackson State University at the College of Business Auditorium with Dr. Robert Luckett and Heather Wilcox, with moderator Dr. Etta F. Morgan.
On Monday, Dr. Lucille Adams Green, class of 1963, roused the crowd at the Dollye M.E. Robinson Liberal Arts Building by first reciting the school song:
Jackson Fair, Jackson Dear
Thee I love, My dear ole college home
Thee I love, Where ever I may roam
Jackson Fair, Jackson Dear
Then, at the conclusion of the hour-long discussion, students and faculty sang the song, ending with its final refrain: Hail, Hail to Thee, Yes, Hail to Thee, Hail to the college of my heart!
The panel packed the time available with scintillating facts about the history of the school, including remarks by Robert Walker, class of 1966, and former chair of the Department of History and Philosophy and mayor of Vicksburg. Walker focused on the period from 1877 to 1984.
Dr. Hilliard Lackey, class of 1965, and JSU national alumni president emeritus, who moderated the panel, spoke on the period from 1967 to 1984.
Dr. Ivory Phillips, retired dean and professor in the College of Education, spoke on the period from 1884 to 2014.
They traced JSU’s beginnings as a private church school founded with 20 newly freed slaves in 1877, through its 1882 relocation to Jackson, its renaming as Jackson State University in 1974, up until today, and a lot of points in between. For example, Lackey focused on the legacy of Dr. John Peoples, whose motto was “knowledge is truth,” and that once knowledge is attained, “we shall be free.”
Lackey recalled the May 14, 1970, Vietnam War protest on campus that ended in the deaths of two students. Students blocked the crime scene with their bodies until the FBI arrived to conduct what they hoped would be a fair investigation. “They didn’t say ‘hands up,’ don’t shoot!’” Lackey said, referring to protests of today.
At 11 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 22, a forum will be held on The JSU Spirit Through Football and Band at the Dollye M. E. Robinson Liberal Arts Lecture Rooms 166/266 with Samuel Jefferson and W.C. Gorden with moderator Dr. Steven Smith; and Dr. Lewis Liddell, Gloria Tatum, and Shirley Blakley with moderator Mea Ashley.
The Founders’ Day Convocation will be at 10 a.m. Thursday, October 23, at the H.P. Jacobs Administration Tower Lawn and Quad on the JSU campus at 1400 John R. Lynch St. In case of inclement weather, it will be held at the Rose E. McCoy Auditorium.
Keynote speaker this year is Hank Thomas, a civil rights veteran and Freedom Rider in 1961.
Events will be capped by a 7 p.m. Friday, October 24, Black Tie Gala at the Jackson Convention Center in downtown Jackson, hosted by the Jackson State University National Alumni Association.