Emancipation, Equity, and Excellence:
Learning from and with Activists
The North Dakota Study Group invites you to Jackson, Mississippi, a singular place in the African American struggle for emancipation. Rich historic sites in Jackson celebrate the courage, creativity and perseverance of activists who were part of Freedom Summer and the Civil Rights Movement. Jackson leaders of today are no less challenged by policies that condone violence, white supremacy, police brutality, and lack of access to health care, housing, jobs, and more. Of particular concern for NDSG will be access to the emancipation that can occur through education, including our own emancipation from racism.
Immersion in the African American experience of Jackson will offer participants new perspectives on equity. We will think about personal experiences in a setting that begs for more radical and focused approaches to issues that some of us have only begun to confront. In Jackson this year, we will join the Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA) in a two-year exploration of what equity, as experienced in Jackson, might mean for public schools, public discourse, and public life.
Excellence, in our title, refers to the unique culture of Jackson in fostering Black Excellence, a vision and reality that guide a community of black leaders and allies in seeking the best for Jackson and its children.
Our study in Jackson will occur through oral history and the testimony of youth; visits to important sites; deep conversations with old and new friends; and weighing the contribution of our actions to current justice and equity struggles. There will be chances to visit in schools, to explore a very possible state takeover of the Jackson City Schools, and to learn of policies and practices that contribute to inequity in Mississippi (and other states). Come to Jackson with us, and help write a new chapter in the history of resistance.
The meeting will begin with dinner on Thursday, February 15, and end at noon on Sunday, February 18, 2018. Many of the sessions will be at Tougaloo College, an important site in the movement of which this meeting is a part. There will be a pre-meeting study of sites in Jackson for those able to arrive Wednesday, February 14.
Immersion in the African American experience of Jackson will offer participants new perspectives on equity. We will think about personal experiences in a setting that begs for more radical and focused approaches to issues that some of us have only begun to confront. In Jackson this year, we will join the Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA) in a two-year exploration of what equity, as experienced in Jackson, might mean for public schools, public discourse, and public life.
Excellence, in our title, refers to the unique culture of Jackson in fostering Black Excellence, a vision and reality that guide a community of black leaders and allies in seeking the best for Jackson and its children.
Our study in Jackson will occur through oral history and the testimony of youth; visits to important sites; deep conversations with old and new friends; and weighing the contribution of our actions to current justice and equity struggles. There will be chances to visit in schools, to explore a very possible state takeover of the Jackson City Schools, and to learn of policies and practices that contribute to inequity in Mississippi (and other states). Come to Jackson with us, and help write a new chapter in the history of resistance.
The meeting will begin with dinner on Thursday, February 15, and end at noon on Sunday, February 18, 2018. Many of the sessions will be at Tougaloo College, an important site in the movement of which this meeting is a part. There will be a pre-meeting study of sites in Jackson for those able to arrive Wednesday, February 14.