The University of Mississippi’s Center for Community Engagement hosted a Voting Rights Summit from March 17 to March 21, as part of its work promoting voter engagement to the greater university community.
The program’s purpose is to educate eligible voters in the university community about their voting rights and the history behind them. The Voting Engagement Summit is held every two years and features a slate of events designed to encourage civic engagement.
“We decided to do this project with university students in mind,” Jamiria Massie, a junior psychology major and voting engagement ambassador, said. “A lot of students don’t know about voting rights or voting history, and we’re looking for ways to educate them.”
The summit opened on the evening of Tuesday, March 17 at the Barnard Observatory with a screening of “Neshoba: The Price of Freedom,” a documentary detailing the struggle for civil rights in Neshoba County.
Neshoba County saw the murders of three Civil Rights Movement activists — James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — during the statewide Freedom Summer voting rights campaign of 1964.
The summit hosted a trivia night in the dining room of Luckyday Residential College on Wednesday, March 18.
Awa Camara, a freshman journalism major and Luckyday resident from Tupelo, Miss., attended the event and said it increased her awareness of the history of civic engagement.
“I got first place,” Camara said. “It was definitely a team effort. I learned a lot more about women’s rights but also more about Mississippi. The last round about state history was difficult for me because I thought I knew more than I did.”
On Thursday, March 19, the summit hosted Brett Kenyon, a social media influencer better known as “Papa Mississippi,” at the Overby Center for a speech regarding Mississippi’s legacy of democracy and voting rights.
Kenyon has enjoyed virality on social media for sharing the history of Mississippi, along with personal commentary on his experiences in the state.
“It’s always surreal to be asked to do anything in my mind because I’m just a guy who makes videos about Mississippi in his backyard,” Kenyon said.
At the event, Kenyon implored attendees to be engaged politically.
“If you’re not engaged, then you won’t have a say in how things are done,” Kenyon said. “One of the illustrations I use is that the brain needs input from every part of the body in order to function; and without very small signals from various parts we can lose the function of entire senses.”
The summit culminated on Saturday, March 21 with a trip to Philadelphia, Miss., the Neshoba County seat.
Students were given a tour of sites related to the Freedom Summer by Leroy Clemons, co-founder of the Philadelphia Coalition, a task force dedicated to preserving the memory of the violence in Neshoba County and president of the Neshoba County chapter of the NAACP.
For voting engagement ambassador Aminata Ba, a junior public policy leadership and Spanish major, the event showed how participation leads to change.
“Change happens through love,” Ba said. “Mississippi has shown that when you take ideas about Southern hospitality and demonstrate that through civic engagement, voter participation and voter education, that’s how real change comes about and it’s how people feel loved and develop a connection to their communities.”
