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Black Power at Ole Miss Task Force
University of Mississippi

Historical Documentation Subcommittee

Mission:

The Historical Documentation subcommittee will work to understand the long history of integration at the University of Mississippi. With special attention to the 1970 expulsions, we will situate the Fulton Chapel protest within the UM climate and trace its lingering effects on participants and their families, as well as on subsequent activism at the university. Specifically, we will continue the work already begun of documenting through oral history the experiences of students engaged in social protest, and we will conduct archival research to document the university’s responses, both to these protests and to their aftermath. In addition, we will create teaching resources that help students understand the history of this campus, the role of college campuses in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, and the responsibilities of civil disobedience in a democracy.

Our projects include: 

  • building out the Black Power at Ole Miss website to include thumbnail sketches of each of the 89 arrested and links to collected oral histories, as well as to information about listening sessions;
  • creating an ESRI story map that identifies sites significant to protest on this campus and within the state, which you can learn more about here;
  • documenting through oral histories the experiences of people involved with the “Up With People” protest, including students arrested, performers in the show, and others on campus at the time; this works builds upon some of the oral histories already collected;
  • collecting material items from the 1970s (photos, letters, booking records, memorabilia) that reflect black life on the UM campus and in the community of Oxford;
  • exploring ways to mark physically in a campus space the events of February 1970;
  • continuing archival research with the goal of producing a full written history of the 1970 expulsions.

The lead writer and researcher on this project is Professor Ralph Eubanks. Jasmine Stansberry is the graduate assistant for the project. She works directly with Professor Eubanks and with historian Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott.

Members:

Kathryn McKee, chair

Ralph Eubanks

Shennette Garrett-Scott

Ethel Scurlock

Jasmine Stansberry

Anne Twitty