Contact: James Carskadon
STARKVILLE, Miss.— An award-winning project created by faculty and students in Mississippi State University Libraries and the MSU Department of History is offering a valuable resource to area educators for discussion of the civil rights movement at the local level.
During a Thursday evening forum [Jan. 26] at The Mill at MSU Conference Center, panelists talked broadly about ways to teach Mississippi's civil rights history and specifically about how Starkville Civil Rights project resources can be used in the classroom. Noxubee County High School History Teacher Julia Trzaskowski said she began incorporating Starkville Civil Rights project materials in her courses last year.
“Civil rights is a key part of the Mississippi history curriculum,” Trzaskowski said. “Through this project, I found more resources to aid my students and my teaching.”
The Starkville Civil Rights project uses oral interviews and research to provide a public history of the area’s civil rights struggle. Video interviews and an interactive timeline are available on the project's website, www.starkvillecivilrights.msstate.edu. Trzaskowski said she had students watch a local resident describe going to a segregated school in Starkville and contrast it with what the students schooling experience is like now. The site also chronicles when Richard E. Holmes became the first African American student to enroll at MSU in 1965. Trzaskowski uses these resources to compare and contrast his enrollment with the experience of James Meredith, who integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962.
Christine Dunn, a senior secondary education major from Niceville, Florida, presented lesson plans she has developed to Mississippi curriculum standards. The lesson plans are available on the project website. Dunn began assisting with the Starkville Civil Rights project in 2014 and said she was excited to see the website develop and become a community and educational resource.
“I started to see similar stories told a different way,” Dunn said of her time archiving interviews.
Other panelists included University of Alabama Librarian Vanjury Dozier; MSU Associate Professor of History Jason M. Ward; MSU Research and Curriculum Unit Project Manager Synthia Ming; and Assistant Professor of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Education Paul Binford. Ward said he was glad to see that the project is replicable in different towns because “every community has a story.”
Dozier said resources like the Starkville Civil Rights project can provide a more complete version of civil rights history by capturing a wider variety of perspectives and making them readily available.
“Students often only know the sanitized version of history,” Dozier said. “We need to give them resources for gaining a complete picture.”
The Starkville Civil Rights project received the 2016 Elbert R. Hilliard Award for the most outstanding oral history project from the Mississippi Historical Society. It also was recognized by MSU’s President’s Commission for the Status of Minorities as an MSU Diversity Award winner in the team category. Funding is provided in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Mississippi Library Commission.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.