DELTA STATE’S 2020 BLUES CONFERENCE GOING VIRTUAL WITH MISSISSIPPI DELTA BLUES FESTIVAL BRAZIL ONLINE EDITION

Delta State University’s 7th Annual International Conference on the Blues is going virtual this month with a Brazilian beat.

Delta State, through The Delta Center for Culture and Learning and the College of Arts and Sciences, has been invited to participate in the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival (MDBF) Brazil Online Edition scheduled for Friday, November 20 – Sunday, November 22, 2020.

The MDBF Brazil online festival will be free and accessible to the public. The online festival will be broadcast on MDBF Brazil’s official website: www.mdbf.com.br

Delta State’s participation in the virtual festival this year will serve as the 7th installment of the International Conference on the Blues. The festival will include performances from seven international locales including Holland, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Brazil.

“We are thrilled about this international partnership, especially since it unites the extraordinary Afro-Brazilian music tradition with the African American Blues tradition,” said Dr. Shelley Collins, professor of music and conference co-chair.

Delta State’s virtual presentation is being supported in part by a grant from the National Park Service’s Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative to lift the theme “Spirit of the Blues: Celebrating Roots of Delta Music Through Spirituals and Gospel.” Due to COVID-19, the grant has been expanded to support the online presentation this year, as well as the 8th annual conference in October 2021, which is scheduled to be in-person.

“We anticipate that the Spirit of the Blues theme and the online festival will engage diverse audiences and expand the conference’s international footprint,” said Dr. Rolando Herts, director of The Delta Center and executive director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area. “The 2020 and 2021 conferences will continue the Spirit of the Blues theme established in 2018. Also, this year’s online presentation is an outcome of DSU’s Delta Delegation to Brazil partnership project started in November 2019. We thank the National Park Service for their continued support as we expand global understanding and appreciation of Mississippi Delta culture through music.”

Delta State’s virtual presentation will feature a Blues and gospel performance from Delta State alum (Delta Music Institute, College of Business) Keith “Prince of the Delta Blues” Johnson, great-nephew of Blues legend Muddy Waters. The presentation also will include highlights from past International Conference on the Blues events and from B.B. King Day at Mississippi Valley State University, a “Spirit of the Blues” project partner.

Operated in southeastern Brazil in the city of Caxias do Sul for over a decade, MDBF Brazil is considered the largest and longest-running Blues festival in South America. According to festival organizer Toyo Bagoso, MDBF Online Edition will offer an innovative way for global Blues fans to pay tribute to the Mississippi Delta, the birthplace of the Blues.

“COVID-19 hit us very hard in Brazil, which led to the closing of our Mississippi Delta Blues Bar in Caxias do Sul,” said Bagoso. “Through our Mississippi Delta partners like Delta State and other global connections, we are able to keep the festival going online. We will have performances coming from the UK, France, the U.S., and Brazil. We also look forward to reopening the Mississippi Delta Blues Bar soon.”

“Like the Mississippi Delta and the rest of America, Brazil has been hit hard by COVID-19. In particular, live music and the performing arts have been facing unprecedented challenges to make sure that ‘the show must go on,’” said Don Allan Mitchell, associate professor of English and conference co-chair. “This unique take on traditional live performances of the Blues & Gospel keeps our audiences safe, and also gives us continuity while we build towards our next conference in 2021.”

The National Park Service is one of several partners supporting the virtual presentation. Others include the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, Delta State Visual Media Arts, Mississippi Valley State University, Visit Mississippi, BB King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, and the Mississippi Delta Tourism Association.

For more information, please contact Dr. Collins and Mr. Mitchell at blues@deltastate.edu.

NEH Funds 11th Year for The Delta Center’s Most Southern Workshop

Summer 2019 NEH Most Southern workshop participants and staff gather at the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden in Ruleville, MS.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University is among 11 institutions that have been awarded Landmarks of American History and Culture grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The Delta Center’s “The Most Southern Place On Earth: Music, History, and Culture of the Mississippi Delta” teacher workshops is the only NEH Landmarks project funded in Mississippi this year.

This is the 11th year that NEH has awarded a grant to The Delta Center at Delta State for hosting the Most Southern workshop. Over the 11 years, NEH has invested nearly $2 million in Delta State and surrounding Mississippi Delta communities through the Most Southern workshop.

The National Humanities Alliance in Washington, D.C., has recognized the Most Southern workshop as a high impact NEH program in several key measurement areas, including enriching k-12 education; providing lifelong learning opportunities for diverse audiences; facilitating community dialogue; fostering local tourism economies; and promoting civic education.

NEH Most Southern workshop participants read the “Black Power” Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker in Greenwood, MS.

This year, NEH also recognized The Delta Center by using the narrative section of its Most Southern workshop proposal as a model for organizations to use when writing NEH landmarks of American history and culture grant applications.

The Delta Center’s award is part of the NEH’s recently announced $30 million in grants for 238 humanities projects across the country. NEH Landmarks grants support two one-week workshops for a national audience of e-12 educators that enhance and strengthen humanities teaching.

“These challenging times underscore how important the humanities are to making American culture and world history relatable across generations,” said NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede. “NEH is proud to award hundreds of grants to keep our nation’s scholars, students, teachers, and citizens moving forward in pursuit of new knowledge and understanding.”

This round of funding, NEH’s last for fiscal year 2020, will support vital research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. These peer-reviewed grants were awarded in addition to $50 million in annual operating support provided to the national network of state and jurisdictional humanities councils.

NEH Most Southern workshop participants experience the flood of 1927 story at the Mississippi River.

“We are honored that NEH has funded our Most Southern Place on Earth teacher workshop for an 11th time,” said Dr. Rolando Herts, director of The Delta Center and co-director of the workshop. “Our region continues to make considerable strides in cultural heritage development through Delta State and the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area (MDNHA). We look forward to immersing our participants in this culturally significant place by engaging them with scholars, performers, and residents who are telling Delta stories through the Blues, the civil rights movement, the food, the land, and the Mississippi River.”The Delta Center will offer two workshops in summer 2021, with 36 k-12 teachers from throughout the U.S. in each cohort. Over the past decade, the NEH Most Southern workshops have developed a dedicated network of more than 700 alumni scholars who serve as educational and cultural ambassadors for Delta State University and the MDNHA. The workshops use an experiential learning approach, engaging participants directly with historically and culturally significant people and places in the MDNHA.

Workshop participants take what they have learned back to their schools and communities, sharing stories and lessons from the MDNHA with students, colleagues, family and friends, nationally and globally. Many past participants have made return visits to the region, bringing students, colleagues, family and friends with them.

“In previous years, we have had participants from Hawaii, California, Illinois, and New York, as well as several scholars from right here in Mississippi,” said Lee Aylward, program associate for education and community outreach at The Delta Center and workshop co-director. “Our alumni are actively engaged with and have enduring respect for The Delta Center, Delta State and the Delta region because of this workshop. Several of them have presented at our International Conference on the Blues and have completed the International Blues Scholars Program, our online Blues Studies certificate.”

The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the MDNHA and is the home of the International Delta Blues Project and the NEH Most Southern Place on Earth workshop. For more information, visit http://www.deltacenterdsu.com.

The MDNHA is a partnership between the people of the Mississippi Delta and the National Park Service. The MDNHA was designated by U.S. Congress in 2009 and is governed by a board of directors representing agencies and organizations defined in the Congressional legislation. More information about the MDNHA, including the complete approved management plan, is available at http://www.msdeltaheritage.com.

Spring 2020 Newsletter

Most Southern Place on Earth workshop Celebrates Ten Years

Many thanks to Obsidian Creative Studios for documenting our 10th anniversary workshops. We also appreciate the funding providing by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the nearly 1000 workshop alumni from across the country that have participated in this experiential educational program about the Mississippi Delta.

Delta Center featured in Legacy Magazine cover story

Dr. Rolando Herts, Director of The Delta Center for Culture and Learning as well as Executive Director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area was recently asked to pen an article about the importance of interpreting American music, specifically blues music from the Mississippi Delta.

Here is an excerpt:

Music heritage in Mississippi carries a legendary mystique that is well suited to interpretive storytelling. In-the-know locals are proud to share how Mississippi has earned its claim to fame as “The Birthplace of America’s Music.” Invoking their Southern storytelling authority, they will tell you that no other state has produced such a high percentage of internationally known, world- class musicians. They will tell you that Mississippi has produced more Grammy Award-winning artists than any state in the country. They will go on to say that this is why the first Grammy Museum outside of Los Angeles was built at Delta State University in Cleveland, the heart of the Mississippi Delta region, which is known worldwide as the “Birthplace of the Blues.”

While this music heritage interpretation may be crafted with a hint of healthy creative license, the stories point to the importance of pride of place and economic opportunity. This is especially so in the Mississippi Delta, proudly known as the “Birthplace of the Blues” and problematically labelled as the poorest region in the poorest state in the United States.

To read the full article, you may download the magazine here.

Delta Center, MDNHA host NPS civil rights open house at Delta State

The Delta Center and the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area recently hosted an open house session for the National Park Service's Mississippi Civil Rights Sites Special Resource Study. One of six open house sessions held throughout the state – including another Delta region open house at Tallahatchie County Courthouse – the meeting provided a space for Mississippi Delta residents to share information about significant civil rights landmarks, people, and events in their communities. 

NPS has encouraged those who were not able to attend the open house sessions to register their comments on the resource study website at https://parkplanning.nps.gov/. The Mississippi Civil Rights Sites Special Resource Study is listed with the Southeast Regional Office and a review ending date of June 1, 2018. According to the website, all public comments are due by that date. 

"As Congressman Bennie Thompson has stated, the National Park Service has a wonderful opportunity to preserve and honor the history of civil rights and the struggle for freedom here in Mississippi,” said Keilah Spann, NPS Southeast Regional Office cultural resources historian. “We can accomplish this in part by connecting with the communities and the people here. So much of the history of the civil rights movement is still within the people who were active in it and are living. We have a unique opportunity yet a limited window of time to capture and preserve this history."

Of the approximately 40 attendees at the Delta State open house, several were community and civil rights leaders including:

• Mr. Charles McLaurin of Indianola who worked with Fannie Lou Hamer;
• Ms. Jessie Williams, a retired history and American government educator who initiated the integration of Shaw High School as its first African American teacher;
• Dr. Matthew Holden, a Mound Bayou native and retired political science professor researching the life of Mound Bayou founder Isaiah T. Montgomery; and
• Senator David Jordan of Greenwood who attended the Emmett Till trial at Tallahatchie County Courthouse in 1955. 

"We are pleased that the National Park Service resource study team asked to host their first civil rights open house session at Delta State," said Dr. Rolando Herts, director of The Delta Center and executive director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area. "This conversation started during the team's initial visit to the Mississippi Delta in February through Mississippi Department of Archives and History. To have two civil rights open house sessions here in our region sends a strong message that the Mississippi Delta is a national civil rights heritage treasure. This is an historic opportunity for residents and entire communities to proudly share their civil rights stories." 

Later that day, a second NPS open house session also was held at the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner. The session was hosted by the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. 

“The National Park Service study helps to solidify the importance of the many Civil Rights Movement sites in Mississippi,” said Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. “We look forward toworking with them, and we were proud to host them in Sumner where over fifty community members came out to voice their opinions.”

In 2017, U.S. Congress passed a law directing NPS to conduct a special resource study of Mississippi's nationally significant civil rights sites. Initial Mississippi Delta sites include key landmarks of the Emmett Till murder such as Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, MS, and Bryant's Grocery Store in Money, MS. 

The open house sessions are part of NPS' efforts to gather information about additional civil rights sites in the Mississippi Delta and throughout the state. They will report their findings to Congress when the study has been completed.