University of Florida Homepage
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Liberal Arts and Sciences Liberal Arts and Sciences

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

 12th Annual Mississippi Freedom Project Panel

 

 

On Wednesday, October 16th, 2019, the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) at UF will host a public program at Pugh Hall titled “Mississippi Freedom Project Panel.” MFP is an experiential learning initiative where students interview civil rights movement veterans in the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta region. For 12 years, UF students have documented the efforts of teachers, museum professionals, high school students and others to apply the lessons of the freedom movement today. This summer, the SPOHP student team stopped in Montgomery to visit the Equal Justice Initiative’s “From Slavery to Mass Incarceration” museum and memorial to lynching victims. Next, the team traveled to Natchez, Mississippi to help restore a historically black cemetery.

 

The Elaine Legacy Center in Phillips County, Arkansas invited SPOHP to help commemorate the 100thanniversary of the Elaine Massacre. UF students were to document the Willow Tree Memorial that commemorated the Elaine Massacre before it was destroyed by vandals less than a week later. The students also spent a day with the African American community in Glendora, Mississippi where vandals had recently wrecked historical markers near the Emmett Till Museum.  MFP gives students opportunities to form relationships with individuals whose work on behalf of civil rights and human rights has changed the course of American history.

The 12thAnnual Mississippi Freedom Project Panel will take place on Wednesday, October 16th, 2019 from 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm inPugh Hall’s Ocora at theUniversity of Florida. The panel session will be followed by a Q&A session and information on how to apply for next year’s fieldwork trip!

Panelists will include:

  • Alwin Hopf, Fulbright Scholar and graduate student in Agricultural and Biological Engineering
  • Megan Pitt, Undergraduate student pursuing double major in Economics and Political Science and a double minor in History and Chinese
  • Julian Valdivia, University Scholar Program student majoring in History
  • Sarah Louis, Undergraduate student majoring in Political Science
  • Amanda Baret, Undergraduate student pursing a double major in Criminology & Law and African American Studies
  • Omar Sanchez, Undergraduate student majoring in English and SPOHP Coordinator
  • Aishwarya Kunta, Undergraduate student pursuing a double major in History and Biology on the Pre-Med Track

 

For more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/422447661724237/

Parking queries, contact tamarraj@ufl.edu or call (352) 392-7168.(Parking is very limited. Call soon!)

 

The MFP archive is stored at the George Smathers Libraries (http://ufdc.ufl.edu/freedom/), which now features over 200 interviews, digital podcasts, teacher’s civil rights history guides, panels and community organizing workshops with civil rights legends.

 

Please share this event with your colleagues and add them to the syllabi of your fall courses. We can provide sign in sheets for classes that make this event an extra credit activity. Flyer is attached.For information about this event and the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP), please call (352) 392-7168 or visit our web site: http://oral.history.ufl.edu/

The 2019 MFP field trip was supported and sponsored by private donors as well as the UF African American Studies Program, the Center for Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies Research, George A. Smathers Libraries, and the Bob Graham Center for Public Service.