Issue No. 2011(2) July 8, 2011 TheToday’s Quarterly Newsletter ofHook the s Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change

Teaching, studying, COMING EVENTS and promoting civil rights and  The Hooks Institute’s Annual social change Open House. September 14, 2011, 2:30 to 4:00 pm, University of Memphis, Michael D. Rose Theatre Entertainment Lobby. Mark your calendars for this event! The Hooks Hooks Institute Selects Hands on Institute welcomes U of M faculty, the Freedom Plow for National Book Award students, and members of the greater Memphis community to its annual Open House. Other exciting news to be shared In the long battle for racial equality, wrote Victoria Gray Adams, white include an upcoming documentary, The segregationists typically thought that “if you controlled the men, you got the rest of Memphis 13 (working title), which will them covered.” But this community organizer and political leader from Hattiesburg, explore the personal experiences of Mississippi, realized their mistake: “They didn’t know the power of women.” students who were the first in 1960 to desegregate Memphis City Schools. The Hands on the Freedom Plow keeps reminding us about the power of women. Its fifty-two Memphis 13 is being produced and personal narratives from workers for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee directed by Daniel Kiel, a U of M faculty (SNCC) stand as more than a collection of experiences; they are an achievement. Edited by member. Electrifying still are more details SNCC veterans Faith S. Holsaert, Martha Prescod Norman Noonan, Judy Richardson, Betty about the upcoming one-hour Garman Robinson, Jean Smith Young, and Dorothy M. Zellner, the book gathers the voices documentary on our namesake, Benjamin of women who provided the ’s backbone. It provides an instructive L. Hooks, titled, Duty of the Hour (working and even inspiring example, lending its readers a sense of empowerment. title), scheduled for release in April 2012. We learn about the diverse nature and experiences of SNCC women. They were black, Duty of the Hour is being directed by Reece L. Auguiste, a U of M faculty white, Latina, northern, southern, young, old, urban, rural, religious, secular, liberal, member, and is being produced by the radical, idealistic, and cynical. We meet women such as the white southerner Joan Hooks Institute and its Director, Daphene Mulholland, who attended Tougaloo College and joined the Freedom Rides because R. McFerren. “integration shouldn’t be a one-way street.” We meet , who joined the in southwest Georgia because “it was God’s work  Hands On The Freedom Plow and also my sacred calling.” We meet Continued on Page 2... Lecture

Stay tuned for the fall date to hear a COMMUNITY CORNER lecture from the editors of Hands On The Hattiloo Arts Symposium, July 23, 2011, 9 to 5 pm. Freedom Plow, winner of the Hooks Institute National Book Award. This will be Hattiloo Theatre, 656 Marshall Avenue, 38103.This free event, sponsored by Hattiloo an exciting and informative lecture on the and Gibson Companies, will feature eight panel discussions that will explore the role of women in shaping the Civil Rights importance of nurturing a local community of professional black artists. Movement. Hooks Institute Selects Hands on the Freedom Plow for National Book Award … Continued from Page 1

In the long battle for racial equality, wrote Victoria Gray Adams, white segregationists typically thought that “if you controlled the men, you got the rest of them covered.”

Dandridge, an adult working mother who received over thirty nominations. The led the movement in Cambridge, other four finalists were Maurice Berger, – a tough and dedicated organizer who For All the World to See: Visual Culture and gained strength from courageous local the Struggle for Civil Rights (Yale University students, as well as the example of Press); Blair L. M. Kelley, Right to Ride: RESEARCH WATCH . And we meet the editors Streetcar Boycotts and African American themselves, such as Judy Richardson, a soft Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson Congratulations to Latrice C. -spoken African American woman from (University of North Carolina Press); J. Tarrytown, New York, who illustrates the Todd Moye, Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Pichon, PhD, and Chunrong Jia, journey of SNCC women as she embraces Airmen of World War II (Oxford University PhD, faculty members in the the organization’s “circle of trust,” draws Press); Thomas Sugrue, Not Even Past: School of Public Health, on their inspiration from Gloria Richardson and Barack Obama and the Burden of Race research awards this spring from and Africa, berates FBI men (Princeton University Press). the Hooks Institute. Dr. Pichon was and convinces airline towers to delay A panel of five judges awarded $5,000 to conduct flights, comes to see politics as less about representing different disciplines and research on African American faith morality than about power, and endures Memphis institutions made the difficult -based organizations’ institutional confusion and disillusion as SNCC decision of choosing the winner. The panel readiness to engage in community- splintered in the mid-1960s. comprised Dr. Femi Ajanaku, Associate based participatory HIV prevention “The women of SNCC were tough- Professor of Sociology at LeMoyne-Owen research in the city of Memphis minded yet sensitive, grounded in a vision College; Dr. Aram Goudsouzian, Associate and Shelby County. that freedom was not only external in Professor of History at The University of terms of defining a space in the SNCC Memphis; Dr. Charles McKinney, Associate Dr. Jia’s award of $5,000 will be collective and larger society, but also Professor of History at Rhodes College; Dr. used to research environmental internal in terms of defining who we were Ladrica Menson-Furr, Associate Professor disparities in African American as females,” writes Gwen Patton in the of English at The University of Memphis; communities in Memphis. These concluding essay. For all their myriad and Dr. Wanda Rushing, Professor of experiences, the contributors to this Sociology at The University of Memphis. research projects further the accessibly written, impressively organized The judges and the Hooks Institute Hooks Institute’s mission of volume share an expansive vision of congratulates the editors and contributors teaching, studying, and promoting freedom that communicates the ideals of of Hands on the Freedom Plow, as well as civil rights and social change by the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social the University of Illinois Press, for this book seeking to improve the health Change. that advances understanding of the outcomes of community members. American civil rights movement and its In this inaugural effort to revive legacy. its Book Award, the Hooks Institute —Aram Goudouzian, PhD

The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute 107 Scates Hall University of Memphis for Social Change Memphis, TN 38152-3440 Office: 901.678.3974 Fax: 901.678.0177 at the University Daphene R. McFerren, Director of Memphis UOM003-FY1112/6C25 Email: [email protected]