SouthTalks: “‘All Our Names Were Freedom’: Agency, Resiliency, and Community in Yalobusha County”

“‘All Our Names Were Freedom’: Agency, Resiliency, and Community in Yalobusha County”

Dottie Chapman Reed, with Colton Babbitt, Michelle Bright, Brittany Brown, Keon Burns, and Rhondalyn Peairs

During the fall semester, five students in SST 560, Oral History of Southern Social Movements, taught by Jessie Wilkerson, collaborated with Dottie Chapman Reed to develop the Black Families of Yalobusha County Oral History Project. Reed, who lives in Atlanta, is a member of the University of Mississippi Class of ’74, grew up in Water Valley, and writes the column “Outstanding Black Women of Yalobusha County” for the North Mississippi Herald. In this SouthTalk, the students of SST 560 will present a multivocal, multilayered history based on interviews from their oral history project. Dottie Chapman Reed will speak during the Summit on Women and Civic Engagement sponsored by the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies earlier that day.

SouthTalks is a series of events (including lectures, performances, film screenings, and panel discussions) that explores the interdisciplinary nature of Southern Studies. This series is free and open to the public, and takes place in the Tupelo Room of Barnard Observatory unless otherwise noted.