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Myrlie Evers-Williams Keynote Speaker at 50 Years of Integration Event

Posted on: March 6th, 2012 by benita

Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers, opened the University’s “50 Year’s of Integration” events recently by delivering a keynote address at Fulton Chapel. Produced by Mary Stanton.

Evers-Williams Returns to UM Friday for ‘Day of Dialogue’

Posted on: February 29th, 2012 by benita

Myrlie Evers-Williams will speak at the university on March 2 at 4 p.m. in Fulton Chapel. The event is sponsored by the Subcommittee on the Civil Rights Movement, the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

OXFORD, Miss. – Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, returns to the University of Mississippi this weekend (March 2-4) to highlight the Ole Miss Alumni Association’s Black Alumni and Family Reunion.

Evers-Williams will give a lecture at 4 p.m. Friday in Fulton Chapel as part of the university’s “Day of Dialogue,” which commemorates 50 years of integration at Ole Miss.

Charles K. Ross, chair of UM’s civil rights movement subcommittee, said he is extremely pleased to have Evers-Williams back on campus.

“The state of Mississippi owes her a tremendous debt in terms of the sacrifice she and her husband made, forever changing the state,” said Ross, director of the African American studies program and associate professor of African American studies and history. “I encourage everyone to come out and hear this great leader.”

Julian Gilner, assistant director of the Ole Miss Alumni Association and organizer of the Black Alumni and Family Reunion, agreed. “We are honored to have such a distinguished slate of speakers and activities for this Black Alumni Reunion, which falls on such a significant anniversary in Ole Miss history,” he said.

Gilner also serves on the university’s civil rights subcommittee, which has organized “Opening the Closed Society: 50 Years of Integration,” the yearlong celebration of diversity at UM. Various panels, lectures, concerts and other activities mark the celebration, which continues through October.

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Exhibit Uses Sounds and Sights to Commemorate 50th Anniversary of University’s Integration

Posted on: February 22nd, 2012 by benita No Comments

OXFORD, Miss. – The 50th anniversary of James Meredith’s enrollment as the first black student at the University of Mississippi is still months away, but the event is commemorated in a special exhibit on display at Gallery 130 in Meek Hall through Feb. 29.

“Not Everyone (can carry the weight of the world)” is a sound installation by artists Les Christensen and John Salvest. Created as “a celebration of one man’s courage, determination and perseverance against incredible odds,” the work – like many sound installations – has visual elements that accompany the sound, but the focus is not what you see but what you hear.

The exhibit concludes Feb. 29 with a 2:30 p.m. lecture by both Salvest and Christensen in the gallery, followed by a reception. Both are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. (more…)

University Commemorates 50 Years of Integration Feb. 23 with Free Concert

Posted on: February 14th, 2012 by benita No Comments

OXFORD, Miss. – It’s as much fun listening to George Dor talk about the upcoming 2012 Black History Month concert as it is hearing him perform, and that’s saying a lot.

On Feb. 23, audiences will have a chance to do both when Dor, associate professor of music at the University of Mississippi, joins several UM student ensembles to present a musical commemoration called “Celebrating 50 Years of Integration.” (more…)

Children’s Defense Fund Founder to Speak Feb. 21 at UM

Posted on: February 7th, 2012 by benita No Comments
Marian Wright Edelman

Marian Wright Edelman

A nationally known advocate for disadvantaged children will speak at the University of Mississippi.

Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, lectures at 7 p.m. Feb. 21 at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for Performing Arts. Free and open to the public, the event is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture’s Future of the South Symposium, the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies as part of Women’s History Month, Black History Month and the Opening the Closed Society Initiative.
Under Edelman’s leadership, the CDF has become the nation’s strongest voice for children and families. The Children’s Defense Fund’s Leave No Child Behind mission is to ensure every child a healthy, fair, safe, moral start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
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Silver Pond Dedication Photo Gallery

Posted on: January 5th, 2012 by benita

View images from the Silver Pond Dedication ceremony. Read more about Silver Pond

Click the image to enlarge

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Yale Historian to Examine Civil War in Civil Rights Era

Posted on: January 4th, 2012 by benita

David Blight

OXFORD, Miss. – A Yale historian will visit the University of Mississippi Nov. 16 to share his insights on Civil War remembrance as part of the Gilder-Jordan Speaker Series in Southern Cultural History.

David Blight will discuss his latest book, “American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era,” (Harvard University Press, 2011) in a free, public lecture at 7:30 p.m. in Nutt Auditorium. He plans to focus on the hold that the Civil War still has on American imagination, with his lecture, “American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era in Our Own Time.”

“I’ll do this in part by focusing on some or all of the writers I delve into in-depth in this new book: Robert Penn Warren, Bruce Catton, Edmund Wilson and James Baldwin,” Blight said. “Each of these important writers, who worked in very different forms and all came from very different backgrounds, were major voices of how Americans remembered the Civil War during the era of the civil rights movement.

“Above all, I will discuss the connections and conflicts between the Civil War centennial commemoration of the 1950s and 1960s and the civil rights movement, which as everyone knows, was so deeply and famously pivotal in Mississippi.”

Blight is a Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University. Before joining the Yale faculty in 2003, he taught at Amherst College for 13 years. In 2010-11, he was the Rogers Distinguished Fellow in Nineteenth Century American History at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. (more…)

UM Tribute Set for Professor James W. Silver

Posted on: September 26th, 2011 by benita

OXFORD, Miss. – Nearly 50 years after he left the University of Mississippi in a storm of controversy, the late James W. Silver, a history professor and author of a well-known book on repression during the segregation era, will be honored by the university in a pair of programs Sept. 30. (more…)