About Us
In 1997, then-President Bill Clinton inaugurated an unprecedented national conversation on race. "One America: The President's Initiative on Race" marked the first time a sitting president had called for such a dialogue without the catalyst of a major crisis. It suggested, on a federal level, the importance of dealing positively with race relations on a daily basis.
Accepting the challenge to prod grassroots efforts, the University of Mississippi hosted the only deep-South public forum for One America. Preceded by dialogue groups representing ten constituency topics ranging from the arts to education to religion, the event highlighted elected delegates from each group. Sharing the insight and hopes of the more than 160 participants, the representatives crafted a frank yet civil discussion on one of our nation's most difficult subjects.
The President's staff hailed the UM experience as the single most successful of the entire Initiative year. That recognition encouraged the University to formalize its dialogue process with the creation of an institute to promote racial reconciliation and civic renewal.
Founded in 1999, the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation builds more inclusive communities by promoting diversity and citizenship, and by supporting projects that help communities solve local challenges.
Click here for the Winter Institute Advisory Board
The Honorable William F. Winter
Born in 1923 in Grenada, Mississippi, William F. Winter served in the armed forces in World War II and the Korean War. He was awarded a BA from the University of Mississippi in 1943 and an LL.B. in 1949. He has since been awarded over five honorary degrees. His credentials within the academic community are long standing: Jamie Whitten Professor of Law and Government at the University of Mississippi School of Law (Fall 1989); Eudora Welty Professor of Southern Studies at Millsaps College (Spring 1989); Fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard University (1985) and President, Ole Miss Alumni Association (1978). He continues to practice law with the Jackson, MS, firm of Watkins Ludlum Winter & Stennis, P.A. which celebrated its one hundredth anniversary in 2005.
William Winter is most well known, however, for his role in leading the charge for publicly-funded primary education while he was the fifty-eighth governor of Mississippi from 1980-1984. His governance echoed his belief that all people, regardless of race or class, should be entitled to the same rights and privileges as the most privileged enjoys. In a substantial way, Governor Winter's accomplishments were honored in 1997 when President Bill Clinton initiated "One America," an unprecedented national conversation on race. Winter served on the board of One America, helping to bring the only deep-South public forum to the University of Mississippi. President Bill Clinton has called Winter a "great champion of civil rights." Positive changes stem from great leadership, and William Winter is one of many guiding lights for Mississippi and America.
On May 12, 2008, Governor Winter was honored at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. Click here to read his acceptance speech
Dr. Susan M. Glisson
Executive Director
In 1998, Susan Glisson coordinated the only deep-South public forum for President Clinton's One America: an Initiative on Race, which led to the creation of the Institute for Racial Reconciliation. Glisson was appointed director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation in November 2002. She has supported community projects throughout the state for the Institute since its inception.
Glisson is a native of Evans, Georgia. She earned bachelor’s degrees in religion and in history from Mercer University, a master’s degree in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William and Mary. Glisson specializes in the history of race and religion in the United States, especially in the black struggle for freedom.
Glisson is the co-author (with Sam Chaltain and Charles Haynes) of First Freedoms: A Documentary History of First Amendment Rights in America (2006), and she edited The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement (2006). She is a contributor to Telling Stories That Change the World (2008) and to the Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working Class History (2006). Glisson is a Salzburg Fellow and has been quoted widely in the media, including in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Miami Herald, The Economist, Le Monde, and on CNN, NBC, and CourtTV. Click here to email Dr. Susan M. Glisson
Institute Staff
Leroy Clemons is a co-founder and president of the Philadelphia Coalition, a multi-racial task force formed in 2004 charged with planning the public commemoration and memorial to the three civil rights workers, who were slain in Neshoba County in 1964 by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The Coalition helped unite a community to stand up and call for justice in the 1964 triple murders of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. The Coalition's push for justice in the forty year old murder case led to the first state conviction as well as passage of Senate Bill 2718, an act directing the Mississippi State Board of Education to make Civil Rights Education a mandatory part of the K-12 curriculum in every public school in Mississippi beginning in the fall of 2010.
He is the Executive Director of the Neshoba Youth Coalition. The Youth Coalition is a youth leadership program for Neshoba County 8th – 12th grade students design to develop critical thinkers and collaborative leaders. The youth participate in a Youth Roundtable dialogue group to exchange information, share personal stories and experiences, express perspectives, and develop solutions to community youth concerns. The groups recommended areas of focus include: history, education, teen pregnancy, school dropouts and race relations.
Clemons presently serves as Vice-President of the advisory board of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. He is a facilitation team leader for the Mississippi Welcome Table initiative. The Welcome Table is a model that was developed around the racial reconciliation process used by the Philadelphia Coalition in 2004 that focused on “the work before the work”, the need for a community seeking sustainable change to understand the importance of listening, storytelling and relationship building as a prerequisite to producing real and measurable change.
Clemons is employed with the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation as the Director of Community Relations. Click here to email Leroy Clemons
Elliot Long, from Wichita, KS, is the Project Coordinator for the Winter Institute. He has a strong background in advocating for LGBTQ rights. Before moving to Oxford, Mississippi, Long served a year of AmeriCorps VISTA in Portland, Maine, leading after school programs for refugee and immigrant youth in public housing. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Ohio University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. He has been published in The Advocate magazine and Beyond Masculinity (beyondmasculinity.com), edited by Trevor Hoppe (2008). Click here to email Elliot Long
Rhondalyn K. Peairs, an Oxford, Mississippi, native, has joined the WWIRR staff as Documentarian and Oral History Project Coordinator for the Mississippi Truth Project. She has been a certified teacher in social sciences since 1998. More recently Peairs served as the Director of the Dow Chemical Multicultural Resource Center and Cultural Studies Librarian at Kansas State University Libraries. Peairs holds a degree in history with a minor in sociology from Tougaloo College. She sees oral history as an important organizing tool in the continuing process of racial reconciliation in Mississippi. Click here to email Rhondalyn Peairs
Charles H. Tucker, a Cary, Mississippi, native, is the Institute's Associate Director. He holds a degree in mass communication and journalism from Jackson State University. Tucker was a newspaper reporter and photographer and a writer for the Associated Press. He has worked in development for the Piney Woods School, where he also tutored and taught creative writing seminars. He served in the Office of Public Information at Jackson State University. Most recently, Tucker was the public information officer for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation on its Mid-South Delta Initiative. He is a facilitator and community builder for the Welcome Table model and helps develop and coordinate the Institute's national and international partnerships. Tucker is a National Book Foundation Summer Fellow and was a Solstice Summer creative writing program participant at Pine Manor College. Click here to email Charles Tucker
Institute Interns
Kaitlyn Barnes is a student intern from Jackson, MS. She is a sophomore Classics major in the Honors college at the university. Click here to email Kaitlyn Barnes
Nathaniel Weathersby is a student intern from Wesson, MS. He is an Integrated Marketing Communication major and Psychology /Business Administration double minor. Nathaniel is a member of the Honors College and is involved with the Student Media Center.
Click here to email Nathaniel Weathersby
Hope Owens-Wilson, from Jackson, MS, is a student intern. She is a sophomore Theatre Major at the University. Click here to email Hope Owens-Wilson