From a Black Church to the ‘Caboose’ Jail: Itta Bena Memorializing Civil Rights Activism
The “Breaking Bread” Itta Bena project encourages unity and communication between Mississippi Valley State University and the Itta Bena community.
The “Breaking Bread” Itta Bena project encourages unity and communication between Mississippi Valley State University and the Itta Bena community.
The speeches, songs and interviews of Fannie Lou Hamer are available for the world to witness in “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America,” a new documentary film that opened the 10th season of “America Reframed” on PBS on Feb. 22.
Rev. Rosa Lee Harden challenges us all to not only remember the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this holiday, but to actively work toward fulfilling his dream of economic equality together.
Sixty years after the original Freedom Riders rolled into Jackson, Miss., after a treacherous bus journey down from Washington, D.C., a new generation of activists chose to start a new ride for equal rights and freedom at Tougaloo College on June 19, 2021, which was the first time in American history that Juneteenth had been celebrated as a federal holiday.
Unita Blackwell was one of the heroes who joined SNCC and brought the vote to Mississippi, courtesy of the Voting Rights Act. Its passage by Congress in 1965 was bought with the blood of martyrs and the untold suffering of thousands more.
Very few people deserve to be called a hero. But, under any criteria, Congressman John Lewis is one of the great American heroes in our country’s history.
I first met John Lewis in 1966 at the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) office in Atlanta. I last saw him dancing two years ago in Tunica, Miss.
Growing up, I had heard about Mississippi. I saw the Confederate battle emblem displayed above and inside the government buildings on arrival.
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