Highlights

The 2011 Annual Gathering of JustPeace, Journey Toward the Light, will be focusing on racial reconciliation and commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Ride.

The Parchman Hour

We will be seeing the latest Civil Rights-era play by Mike Wiley.  Wiley is an acclaimed actor and playwright, and now visiting professor at Duke University.  The Parchman Hour commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders.   Presented in the style of the variety shows of yesteryear, this moving production explores three of the tensest months of 1961. The Parchman Hour brings to the stage powerful oral histories and conversations from the Freedom Rides’ most iconic protagonists and antagonists.  Read more about the play here.

And, here is a review from the University of North Carolina newspaper, The Daily Tarheel:  “Parchman Hour” packs a punch, tackles difficult topics.

Medgar Evers Home

Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist from Mississippi and was assassinated in his driveway on June 12, 1963 after coming home from a NAACP meeting by a white supremacist.  His activism in Mississippi made him one of the most visible civil rights leader in Mississippi.   As a result, he and his family were subjected to numerous threats and violent actions over the years, including a firebombing of their house.   His murder helped prompt President John F. Kennedy to ask Congress for a civil rights bill, which was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson the following year.

Tougaloo College

During the 1950s and 1960s, this historically black college became a primary center of activity of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Students at Tougaloo, whose campus is located ten miles north of Jackson, led a multi-year effort to end racial discrimination in the state’s capital city.   Tougaloo College’s leadership, courage in opening its campus to the Freedom Riders and other Civil Rights workers and leaders, and its bravery in supporting a movement whose time had come, helped to change the economic, political and social fabric of the state of Mississippi and the nation.