Write On, Mississippi!

Period photographs of pivotal moments, first-person stories from history, and the trail of Black America’s fight for freedom and equality present a vivid look at the movement that transformed America.

Panelists:

DEBORAH D. DOUGLAS is the Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at DePauw University and a senior leader with The OpEd Project, leading thought leadership fellowships and programs that include the University of Texas at Austin, Yale University, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, Urgent Action Fund in South Africa and Kenya, and the McCormick Foundation-supported Youth Narrating Our World (YNOW). While teaching at her alma mater, Northwestern University's Medill School, she spearheaded a graduate investigative journalism capstone on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and taught best practices in Karachi, Pakistan. She is an award-winning journalist, including the 2019 Studs Terkel award, and founding managing editor of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Douglas is author of "Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler's Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement" (Moon Travel, 2021) and is among 90 contributors to "Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019," edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (Random House/One World).

A native of Holly Springs, Mississippi, Roy is the Executive Director and one of the founders of the Hill Country Project . He was active as a high school student in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and then as a general organizer. Roy earned his Bachelor's degree in Sociology at Brandeis University in 1970. Continuing his education at Brandeis, he went on to earn a Masters and later a Doctorate in Political Science in 1978. He has also pursued additional studies at Jackson State, Duke, Carnegie-Mellon, Michigan and Harvard Universities.

He has a wife, Rubye and one daughter, Aisha Isoke.   

William Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1997-2001), Ferris has written or edited 16 books and created 15 documentary films. He co-edited with Charles Wilson the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His books include: Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues, The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists, and The South in Color: A Visual Journal. His most recent publication Voices of Mississippi received two Grammy Awards for Best Liner Notes and for Best Historical Album. Ferris curated "I Am a Man:" Civil Rights Photographs in the American South-1960-1970, which is on exhibit at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and is accompanied by his latest book "I Am a Man": Civil Rights Photographs in the American South-1960-1970.

His honors include the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities, the American Library Association's Dartmouth Medal, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award, and the W.C. Handy Blues Award. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine named him among the Top Ten Professors in the United States. He is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society. Ferris received the B. L. C. Wailes Award, given to a Mississippian who has achieved national recognition in the field of history by the Mississippi Historical Society. In 2017, Ferris received the Mississippi Governor's Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Moderator :

Motivational speaker, historian, and women's activist, Pamela D.C. Junior is a native of Jackson, Mississippi and earned a B.S. in Education with a minor in Special Education from Jackson State University. Pamela is the newly appointed director of the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, Mississippi.