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‘Goals nobody can argue with’: Mississippi universities rebrand DEI to focus on access, opportunity and belonging

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mississippitoday.org – Molly Minta – 2024-08-02 13:35:00

The University of Mississippi is in the midst of restructuring its Division of Diversity and Community Engagement as other universities across the state have already made changes to their diversity, equity and inclusion offices, potentially in an effort to ward off a legislative ban.

Earlier this year, the head of Mississippi State University’s diversity division gave a presentation to faculty on the restructuring that was announced last fall. As of July 1, the University of Southern Mississippi’s renamed “Office of Community and Belonging” will serve a broader audience, a spokesperson confirmed.

Delta State University did not to refill its DEI coordinator after the position was vacated last year, according to a statement. The job was eliminated during the recent budget cuts.

At all three institutions, the universities told Mississippi Today the changes did not come with a reduction to any programs, scholarships or initiatives that aim to support the enrollment, retention and employment of students and faculty from historically marginalized groups such as racial minorities, veterans, first-generation and low-income students. In higher education, DEI traditionally refers to a range of administrative efforts to comply with civil rights laws and foster a sense of on-campus belonging among those populations.

At Ole Miss, it’s unclear if the university’s restructuring of the division will result in a reduction to any of the efforts the university announced in its ambitious “Pathways to Equity” plan three years ago.

“University leaders are working to determine the best way to align our resources to focus on what matters for educational attainment and student success,” a spokesperson, Jacob Batte, wrote in an email to Mississippi Today. “We anticipate some changes will be forthcoming, but the internal review is not completed.”

Across the country, conservative legislation has caused universities to shutter such offices, reassign or fire employees, and end scholarships and programs aimed at supporting marginalized students. Fourteen states have passed laws banning or restricting DEI practices of some kind, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education

Just last week, the University of Alabama System announced its campuses would close offices and reassign staff in response to a law banning DEI offices, programming and training in state agencies, AL.com reported.

The changes at Mississippi’s universities have come without a legislative mandate. Mississippi lawmakers have nominally banned the teaching of critical race theory, but the Republican-controlled Legislature has not put the kibosh on funding for DEI initiatives. Earlier this year, Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, introduced a bill that would have done so, but it died in a House committee. 

Universities in Arkansas and South Carolina also preemptively reorganized their DEI offices, according to Inside Higher Ed. In both states, lawmakers have not passed a ban. The University of Missouri at Columbia announced a similar move earlier this year.

In Mississippi, the state’s loudest advocate for a DEI ban, State Auditor Shad White, focused much of his speech at the Neshoba County Fair this week on DEI. He has used his office to audit DEI programs at the eight public universities, including his alma mater, Ole Miss. In interviews and on social media, White has repeatedly warned about the “dangers of DEI,” saying it teaches college students “that we have to discriminate against some people because of the color of their skin.” 

Last year, White’s office determined the eight universities have spent at least $23 million in state and institutional funds since 2019 on a range of DEI programs, including affinity groups for minority students, programming like International Student Month, and staff members to support students who are veterans.

The bulk of DEI spending occurred at Mississippi’s five predominantly white institutions, with the three historically Black institutions having little programs or initiatives to report. Alcorn State University reported scholarships for non-Black students as DEI spending.

Changes across the system

Mississippi Today asked every university in Mississippi about possible changes to their DEI programs, including if there has been a reduction in any related programs or jobs.

At some schools, it’s unclear what changes, if any, have occurred. Mississippi Valley State University did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Alcorn State, which listed an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion on the state auditor’s report. The university’s website now lists an Office of Educational Equity and Inclusion, but a spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

In response to questions from Mississippi Today, a Jackson State University spokesperson responded “I have no new info to share with you.”

Though USM renamed its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion last month, its mission remains unchanged, according a statement from the university.

“The Southern Miss family is comprised of many first-generation students and graduates, and that is something we are very proud of,” Eddie Holloway, a senior associate provost who helped lead the restructuring, said in a statement. “Ensuring these, and all students at Southern Miss, have opportunities to learn, lead and excel, remains a key priority for our institution.”

Last November, Mississippi State University announced a new organizational structure for its Division for Access, Diversity and Inclusion, as well as a new name. It is now called the Division of Access, Opportunity and Success. This effort got underway in 2020 in an effort to lessen disparate outcomes that a taskforce found among first-generational, low-income and racial minority students at the university.

Alongside the renaming, the university moved programs aimed at low-income, housing insecure and first-generation students under the Office of Access and Success, according to a presentation the division’s vice president, Ra’Sheda Boddie-Forbes, gave to the faculty senate earlier this year.

Boddie-Forbes told the faculty senate it’s not a secret that DEI has come under attack but that it was important for Mississippi State to continue the work of trying to help students from all backgrounds earn a degree. She said she had spoken with President Mark Keenum about how to protect and expand efforts to support the university’s marginalized students.

“When we think about how we deepen that work at the institution, one of the things that we know we can do is think about the nomenclature associated with the work,” she said, according to a recording of the meeting. “So, how does our work become more grounded in the fact that we’re doing work around ‘access,’ we’re doing work around ‘opportunity,’ and we’re doing work around ‘success?’ So that’s what we decided to do.” 

In a statement, Sid Salter, MSU’s vice president for strategic communications, said the restructuring did not result in the loss of any programs, initiatives, scholarships or jobs but that the university’s offerings are “constantly evaluated and are subject to change as the needs of our students evolve.”

“MSU’s Division of Access, Opportunity and Success exists with the express mission of providing programming and assistance to students to help them be successful in obtaining a college degree,” Salter wrote. “Our students come from many diverse backgrounds – some are first-generation college students, some are from the foster system, some are disabled, some are veterans, some have economic challenges – and the list goes on.”

Delta State University, according to a university webpage, started developing diversity initiatives in 2007. DEI programs, which have not been reduced, are now run through student affairs, according to an email from a spokesperson.

A spokesperson for Mississippi University for Women, which does not appear to have a DEI office, said the university had not made any changes.

‘An example for the nation and the world’

At Ole Miss, the division in question was founded in 2017 as a hub for various diversity initiatives the university had developed over the years. 

But its primary responsibility was implementing the university’s ambitious “Pathways to Equity” plan that committed the campus to three, five-year goals: Create more capacity for equity on campus, cultivate a diverse community and foster an inclusive climate. Each administrative school was charged with creating its own DEI goals.

The university hoped the plan could be an inspiration to other institutions. 

“By taking this responsibility seriously and plotting a principled and measurable path forward, we also can play a role in setting an example for the nation and the world,” Provost Noel Wilkin said in a 2021 press release. 

Ole Miss has achieved some of the plan’s specific goals, such as commemorating the 60th anniversary of the university’s integration. The number of Black faculty at the university has increased but still comprises a small portion of the more than 600 faculty, according to IHL and federal data. 

On other goals, progress has been a struggle. Since the plan was announced, the number of Black students on campus has steadily fallen, according to IHL data of on-campus headcount enrollment. In 2023, Ole Miss enrolled 2,156 Black students — several hundred less than it did in 2013.

Many Mississippi higher ed officials support DEI

This trend is not unique to Ole Miss. The IHL system enrolls fewer Black students than it used to while white enrollment remains roughly the same, though the root cause of this trend is likely complex. 

Still, higher education officials in Mississippi continue to say diversity is an important part of their campuses. As of January last year, the governing board of Mississippi’s eight universities evaluates the college presidents, whom the board has the power to hire and fire, based in part on how well they promote “campus diversity.”

The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees’ policies and bylaws also includes a diversity statement, last issued in 2013, that reads in part, “Institutions of higher learning have a moral and educational responsibility to ensure that talent is developed in all our citizens, and that our universities, individually and collectively, are strengthened by diversity in student bodies, faculties, administration, and in all areas offering employment opportunities, including construction, financing and consulting.”

When IHL held its annual diversity awards earlier this year, the trustee who presented the awards, Steven Cunningham, a radiologist who attended Jackson State University, thanked the presidents for supporting diversity on their campuses. 

“In this current environment of nationwide, orchestrated assaults against DEI programs by organizations such as the Claremont Institute and others like it, you guys continue to foster representative communities on your campuses, and I just want to thank you for your courage and your leadership in that endeavor, so thank you so much guys,” Cunningham said. “Those thoughts are mine and mine alone, and I approve that message.”

The Claremont Institute is a conservative think-tank based in California with ties to former President Donald Trump that has helped to lead the movement against DEI programs, according to the New York Times.

In a sit-down video recorded last fall, Keenum discussed Mississippi State’s diversity programming with Salter.

The president said he was passionate about and defensive of the work Mississippi State does to support marginalized students. Keenum added that the total bans on DEI programs in states like Texas and Florida came from a place of misunderstanding. 

“Because of the perception that there’s a ‘woke indoctrination,’ they’re missing the fact that these programs are here to help students succeed that come to us with different backgrounds,” Keenum said. “And that’s what we’re about here at Mississippi State.” 

“What I heard you say and what I’ve heard Ra’Sheda say as she talks about reorganizing her division is access opportunity and student success,” Salter responded. “And those are all goals nobody can argue with.” 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Crystal Springs commercial painter says police damaged his eyesight

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mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-22 12:21:00

CRYSTAL SPRINGS – Roger Horton has worked decades as a commercial painter, a skill he’s kept up with even with the challenge of having what his wife has called “one good eye.” 

It hasn’t stopped him from being able to complete detailed paint jobs and create straight lines without the help of tape. But last year following a head injury, he and others said people have been pointing out a change in his work. Horton says the sight in his right eye is clouded, like he is looking underwater.

Affected vision, short term memory and periods of irritability – potential symptoms of concussion – followed after he was arrested last September. During an encounter with several police officers, Horton alleges more than one slammed his head into a cruiser and placed handcuffs on so tight that he started to bleed. 

“(The officer) was kind of rough with me and all, and he takes my head and I said, ‘What’d I do?’” he recalled recently. 

Horton ended up being convicted of two misdemeanor charges and has paid off the fines, but a year later he still has questions about the arrest and treatment by the police. 

To date, he has not seen a doctor to evaluate his eye and check for vision or cognitive issues. Horton and his wife Rhonda don’t have a car, and transportation to doctor’s appointments in the Jackson area remains a challenge. 

The Hortons have lived in Crystal Springs all their lives, and they have lived in the home the past five years that belonged to Rhonda’s mother. 

More than a quarter of all people in Crystal Springs live below the poverty line, and that includes the couple. Rhonda Horton said it’s hard to make a living because there aren’t a lot of jobs, but they support themselves as painters. 

That’s how they met Yvonne Florczak-Seeman, who lived in Illinois and purchased her first historical property in Crystal Springs in 2019. She splits her time between the two states. 

“We painted that porch bar and the rest is history,” Rhonda Horton said, adding that they went on to complete detailed work on mantles, kitchen cabinets and a cigar room at Florczak-Seeman’s North Jackson Street residence. 

Over the years, the couple built a relationship with Florczak-Seeman, who is seeking to open a women’s empowerment center called the Butterfly Garden, in the building next to city hall. 

Yvonne Florczak-Seeman poses for a portrait at her business, The Butterfly Garden, in Crystal Springs, Miss., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Florczak-Seeman has supported the couple numerous times, including helping them pay a late water bill and offering them work. She called them talented painters and hired them again to paint the interior of the future center, located at East Railroad Avenue. 

In pieces, Rhonda Horton told Florczak-Seeman about her husband’s arrest and later the injuries she said he sustained from it. Florczak-Seeman had questions about the encounter and other potential injustices at play, so she offered to help. 

“I just want them to pay for what they’ve done not just to him, but everybody,” Rhonda Horton said. “That’s what I want, justice.” 

The Arrest

On Sept. 24, 2023, Horton was walking home from a friend’s house when officers approached him. One grabbed his arms to handcuff him, and he remembers them cutting his wrist and causing it to bleed.

Then, he said, a second officer slammed his head into the top of the police car, followed by another officer who slammed his head again. During the encounter, a bag of marijuana that Horton said he found fell out of his pocket onto the ground. 

An officer put Horton in the back of the cruiser and took him to the station where Horton asked to speak to the police chief and call his wife. He said the police took his phone and clothes.

Afterward, he was taken to the Copiah County Detention Center in Gallman. 

Police Chief Tony Hemphill disputed Horton’s allegation of mistreatment, saying he did not sustain any injuries that required hospitalization. He said Horton’s wrist was cut while he resisted arrest. 

“He was not brutalized and targeted,” Hemphill said. “If he had just complied, he wouldn’t have had to come up there (to jail) that night.”

Two police reports from the night of the September 2023 arrest detail how officers had responded to a possible assault and were given the description of a white man. While in the area, they encountered Horton — the only person who fit that description. 

Hemphill said a mother called police after her daughter told her she was assaulted. He said officers approached Horton on the street and tried to talk with him to rule him out as a suspect. 

That’s when Horton began “fighting, pulling away, and kicking against (the officer’s) patrol vehicle, trying to run,” according to a police report from the night and Hemphill. Horton denies doing any of that. 

The next day police took Horton from the county jail to the Crystal Springs police station. There, police informed him a teenage girl reported being assaulted. After learning about the assault allegation, Horton remembered feeling shocked and saying it couldn’t be true because he was not on the street where the alleged incident took place. 

Hemphill confirmed the police investigated the assault allegation and found it not credible, meaning Horton wouldn’t face any related charges. He said he communicated this to Horton and his wife early on and since then, which the couple disputes. 

As Horton was being arrested and detained, his wife grew worried because she had just spoken with him on the phone and expected him to arrive home shortly. Rhonda Horton and her adult son started calling Roger’s phone, each not getting an answer. 

Then during one of the calls by her son, someone who did not identify himself answered Roger’s phone and said, ‘Your daddy’s dead’ and then hung up, Rhonda Horton said. 

She was starting to assume the worst had happened. Rhonda Horton wouldn’t have confirmation her husband was alive until he called from the county jail in the early morning. 

The next morning as she talked with the police chief, Rhonda Horton asked the chief about who answered the phone and told her son that Roger was dead. The chief told her the person who answered must have been from the county. 

Hemphill later told Mississippi Today that he did not know about the call and that type of behavior by his staff “is not going to be tolerated.” Similarly, Copiah County Sheriff Byron Swilley said he had not heard about it and could not say whether a member of his department made the comment to Rhonda and Roger Horton’s son. 

A Sept. 25, 2023, citation signed by Hemphill, shared with Mississippi Today, summoned Roger Horton to municipal court for the misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and resisting arrest and directed him not to have contact with the alleged victim in the assault case. No contact orders are typically for cases such as domestic violence and sexual assault and they are set by a judge.

LaKiedra Kangar, who works in municipal court services, said the no contact order was put in place because of the assault allegation. She confirmed Horton was not charged with the offense following the police department’s investigation of the allegation. 

Weeks passed. Roger Horton went to court for the misdemeanor charges, to which he pleaded guilty.  Felony assault charges were not part of the hearing. Municipal Court Judge Matthew Kitchens ordered Roger to pay over $900 in fines for the misdemeanors. 

Horton was able to pay for some of the fine through at least 10 hours worth of court-ordered community service, which he said involved painting buildings for the city. 

Months later after learning about Horton’s arrest and how he said the police treated him, Florczak-Seeman said she wanted to know more. Horton didn’t have access to his arrest documents, so she accompanied him and his wife to the police department to ask for them. 

The first visit, Horton asked but did not receive the arrest report. Florczak-Seeman asked if he had a fine for any of the charges, which police said Horton did even after completing some community service hours. Florczak-Seeman paid for the remaining balance and had him work for her for two days to pay that off. 

This year, they went to the police department a second time so Horton could ask for his arrest paperwork. An officer told him he didn’t need it and that the rape allegation had been investigated and found not to be credible, Horton told Mississippi Today. 

Florczak-Seeman asked why Horton couldn’t receive the report. She said Hemphill asked if she was Horton’s attorney, and Florczak-Seeman clarified she was his representative. 

The chief left for a few minutes and returned with two pieces of paper and handed them to Horton. Hemphill told Mississippi Today he did not recall whether he was the one who handed the report to Horton. 

Florczak-Seeman took the document from Horton and began to read it as they stood in the lobby. She said she was horrified to see the name of the alleged, underage victim and her address in the report.

Hemphill said the victim’s personal information should have been restricted and not doing so was an oversight. 

After reading the report, Florczak-Seeman went down the street to the mayor’s office at city hall to explain what happened, and how she believed the mayor had grounds to fire the police chief because he provided that document to Roger with the alleged victim’s information. 

Crystal Springs Mayor Sally Garland Credit: Crystal Springs website

Mayor Sally Garland confirmed she had a conversation with Florczak-Seeman about the police chief’s employment. 

She said she reviews all complaints about city officials, and Garland said she goes to the department head to get a better understanding of the situation. If she determines there are potential grounds for termination, a hearing would be scheduled with the Board of Aldermen, and the group would vote on that decision.   

Garland did not find grounds for termination, and Hemphill remains police chief. 

A Strange Visit

The Hortons and Florczak-Seeman hadn’t given much thought about the 2023 arrest, until weeks ago when a teenaged girl suddenly showed up in Florczak-Seeman’s yard. 

At the end of September at the North Jackson Street home, Florczak-Seeman heard screaming and found the teenage girl who came onto her property. She asked what was wrong, and the teenager said she was chased by a dog, which Florczak-Seeman and Rhonda Horton did not see. 

The teenager asked for a soda, and Rhonda Horton went inside to get one. Florczak-Seeman asked where the teenager lived, and she gave an answer that Florczak-Seeman said conflicted with what two girls who were standing nearby on the public sidewalk said she told them. 

Then Florczak-Seeman asked the teenager’s name and recognized it as the name of the alleged victim on Horton’s arrest record. Immediately, Florczak-Seeman said she turned to Horton and told him to stay back, and she told the teenager to get off her property, which she did. 

At the moment, they were not able to verify whether the teenager was the alleged victim from the report. Neither the Hortons nor Florczak-Seeman had seen her before, and they only knew her name from the arrest report.

“That didn’t make sense at all,” Rhonda Horton told Mississippi Today. 

Florczak-Seeman called 911 to report the situation and ask for police to come, which they did not. Hemphill told Mississippi Today a dispatcher informed him about the call with Florczak-Seeman, including details with the teenage girl and how she wanted to report the girl for trespassing. 

Florczak-Seeman is one of the people who have noticed a difference in Horton’s vision. It’s clear when comparing the detailed and clean paint job Roger completed at her Jackson Street property in 2019 and the center where he painted last year.

During an interview at the center in October, Florczak-Seeman pointed to the ceiling and noted spots that Horton did not paint. She remembers telling him about them and realized that he couldn’t see them. 

“The spots on my ceiling are still not painted, and they’re not painted as a reminder of the injustices that happened in this situation and why I got involved,” Florczak-Seeman said. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Central, south Mississippi voters will decide judicial runoffs on Tuesday

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mississippitoday.org – Taylor Vance – 2024-11-22 11:16:00

Some Mississippi voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide who should represent them on the state’s highest courts. 

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Absentee voting has begun, and in-person absentee voting at county circuit clerk’s offices ends at noon on Saturday. 

In the Jackson Metro area and parts of central Mississippi, incumbent Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens will compete against Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County. In areas on the Gulf Coast, Jennifer Schloegel and Amy St. Pé will face each other for an open seat on the Court of Appeals. 

Candidates for judicial offices in Mississippi are technically nonpartisan, but political parties and trade associations often contribute money to candidates and cut ads for them, which has increasingly made  them almost as partisan as other campaigns. 

In the Central District Supreme Court race, GOP forces are working to oust Kitchens, one of the dwindling number of centrist jurists on the high Court. Conservative leaders also realize Kitchens is next in line to lead the court as chief justice should current Chief Justice Mike Randolph step down.

Kitchens is one of two centrist members of the high court and is widely viewed as the preferred candidate of Democrats, though the Democratic Party has not endorsed his candidacy. 

Kitchens, first elected to the court in 2008, is a former district attorney and private-practice lawyer. On the campaign trail, he has pointed to his experience as an attorney and judge, particularly his years prosecuting criminals and his rulings on criminal cases. 

In an interview on Mississippi Today’s ‘The Other Side’ podcast, Kitchens said his opponent, who primarily practices real estate law, would be at a “significant disadvantage” because the state Supreme Court often reviews criminal cases and major civil lawsuits that are sent to them on appeal. 

“I’m sure she has an academic knowledge about the circuit courts that she perhaps learned in law school or perhaps has been to some seminars, but she does not have the hands-on trial experience that I have,” Kitchens said. “And that’s so important to the work that I do.” 

Branning, a private-practice attorney, was first elected to the Legislature in 2015. She has led the Senate Elections and Transportation committees. During her time at the Capitol, she has been one of the more conservative members of the Senate leadership, voting against changing the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, voting against expanding Medicaid to the working poor and supporting mandatory and increased minimum sentences for crime.

While campaigning for the judicial seat, she has pledged to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she has stopped short of endorsing policy positions — which Mississippi judicial candidates are prohibited from doing. 

Branning declined an invitation to appear on Mississippi Today’s podcast. 

“Mississippians need and deserve Supreme Court justices that are constitutionally conservative in nature,” Branning said in a recent interview with radio station SuperTalk Mississippi. “And by that, I mean justices that simply follow the law. They do not add or take away.”

The two candidates have collectively raised around $187,00 and spent $182,00 during the final stretch of the campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office. 

Since she initially qualified in January, Branning has raised the most amount of money at $879,871, with $250,000 of that money coming from a loan she gave her campaign. She spent around $730,000 of that money. Several third party groups have supported her campaign. 

Kitchens has raised around $514,00 since he qualified for reelection. He’s spent roughly $436,000 of that money, and some of his top contributors have been trial attorneys. 

For the open Court of Appeals seat, Schloegel and St Pe, two influential names on the Gulf Coast, are working to turn out their voters in a close election. 

Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge in Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties. St. Pé  is an attorney in private practice, a municipal court judge in Gautier, and a city attorney for Moss Point. 

Schloegel has raised roughly $214,000 since she qualified, and has spent almost that same amount of money this election cycle. St. Pé has raised around $480,000 this year and spent approximately $438,067 during that timeframe. 

Whoever wins the race, it ensures that a woman will fill the open seat. After the election, half of the judges on the 10-member appellate court will be women, the most number of women who have served on the court at one time. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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On this day in 1961

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-22 07:00:00

Nov. 22, 1961

Credit: Courtesy: Georgia Tourism & Travel

Five Black students, made up of NAACP Youth Council members and two SNCC volunteers from Albany State College, were arrested after entering the white waiting room of the Trailways station in Albany, Georgia. 

The council members bonded out of jail, but the SNCC volunteers, Bertha Gober and Blanton Hall declined bail and “chose to remain in jail over the holidays to dramatize their demand for justice,” according to SNCC Digital Gateway. The president of Albany State College expelled them. 

Gober became one of SNCC’s Freedom Singers and wrote the song, “We’ll Never Turn Back,” after the 1961 killing of Herbert Lee in Mississippi. The tune became SNCC’s anthem. 

After her release from jail, Gober joined other students, and police arrested her and other demonstrators. Back in the same jail, she sang to the police chief and mayor to open the cells, “I hear God’s children praying in jail, ‘Freedom, freedom, freedom.’” 

Albany State suspended another student, Bernice Reagon, after she joined SNCC. She poured herself into the civil rights movement and later formed the Grammy-nominated a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock to educate and empower the audience and community. 

“When I opened my mouth and began to sing, there was a force and power within myself I had never heard before,” a power she said she did not know she had. 

Other members of the Freedom Singers included Cordell Reagon, Bernice Johnson, Dorothy Vallis, Rutha Harris, Bernard Lafayette and Charles Neblett. On the third anniversary of the sit-in movement in 1963, they performed at Carnegie Hall. 

“This is a singing movement,” SNCC leader James Forman told a reporter. “The songs help. Without them, it would be ugly.” 

Today, the Albany Civil Rights Institute houses exhibits on these protesters, Martin Luther King Jr. and others who joined the Albany Movement.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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