Latest News
• The Hamer Institute recently co-hosted a Community Leadership Summit on Economic Development through Heritage Tourism. The event was attended by mayors and community leaders from 15 selected towns, most of which are located in the Mississippi Delta. Featured speakers included Governor Haley Barbour and representatives from the Mississippi Development Authority, Delta Regional Authority, Mississippi Arts Commission, Mississippi Heritage Trust, Enterprise Corporation of the Delta, Alcorn Cooperative Extension Program, and Mississippi State University's Extension Service.

Left to right: David Deardorff, Project Co-Director, The Hamer Institute;
Dr. Gwendolyn Prater, Dean, College of Public Service;
Dr. Joan Wesley, Project Co-Director, Department of Urban and Regional Planning;
Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi

The Community Leadership Summit was conducted in partnership with Jackson State University's Department of Urban and Regional Planning as part of a project that focuses on creating heritage tourism resources for economically disadvantaged communities in Mississippi. The project will further the work of The Hamer Institute in identifying civil rights historical sites and developing interpretive resources on Mississippi's civil rights history.

• The National Endowment for the Humanities has funded our proposed summer workshop for community college professors, Landmarks of American Democracy: From Freedom Summer to the Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike. Two separate one-week workshops will be conducted in June; the first will be held June 15 - 21, and the second June 22 - 28. More information will be posted to the Programs section of this website as soon as it is available.

• The consultation phase of our NEH grant "Interpreting the History of the Civil Rights Movement" was completed in December 2006. During this stage of the project, The Hamer Institute identified 110 Mississippi communities in which substantial civil rights activities occurred between 1960-68. The project grouped these communities into seven regions and also identified major themes and people who played historically significant roles during the movement. Future work on this project will involve the identification of historically significant sites and the development of interpretive tours and educational materials.

• The Spring 2006 edition of the Hamer Happenings newsletter was mailed in June 2006. A downloadable PDF version of the newsletter is available here.

• The Hamer Institute was awarded the 2005 "Educator of the Year" award by the Mississippi Humanities Council. Pictured below are Jeff Kolnick, Dave Deardorff, Michelle Deardorff, and Leslie McLemore, receiving the award at the 2006 Mississippi Humanities Council's annual banquet. (Photo courtesy of the Mississippi Humanities Council.)

• A photo archive of most of the landmarks included in the 2004 and 2005 Landmarks of American Democracy workshop field trips is online in the Resources section of this site. A companion downloadable guide is also available in PDF form.