Our Current Work
The Winter Institute serves the University of Mississippi and the larger academic community through public speakers, scholarly research, curriculum for teachers, and conferences. Some of our work includes
- Links to resources on the history of slavery and African American History:
> The African American Registry, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota
> Breaking the Silence: Teaching the Transatlantic Slave Trade, from Tulane University
> From Slavery to Reconciliation, a site by a direct descendant of two slave-owning families from Charleston, South Carolina.
> The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.
> National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
> Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome
> Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice at Brown University includes links to curriculum and interactive documents
> UNESCO's Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade project
- Annual Civil Rights Education Summits for teachers, held in Philadelphia, MS (2005) [this 4-page booklet requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view], McComb, MS (2006), and Oxford, MS (2007).
- "The Legacy of Slavery," Rita Bender's talk at the University of Mississippi on October 25, 2005.
- Links to Economic Development resources:
> The Mississippi Economic Policy Center Report on the Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis
> An Econometric Study on the impact of racism on Mississippi's economy
> The Economic Policy Institute’s briefing paper “Do subprime loans create subprime cities? Surging inequality and the rise in predatory lending”
- Documentary film on the Freedom Riders, free to educators.
- An excerpt of Winter Institute Director Susan Glisson's dissertation "Neither Bedecked Nor Bebosomed:" Lucy Mason, Ella Baker and Women's Leadership and Organizing Strategies in the Struggle for Freedom." (Link opens a PDF document.)
This 19-page paper requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
- First International Conference on Race: Racial Reconciliation, October 2003.
- Open Doors commemoration of 40 years since the University of Mississippi's integration, 2002-2003 academic year.
- Hugh S. Whitaker's 1963 FSU master's thesis report "A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case." (Link opens a PDF document.)
This 218-page study requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
- Ellen Whitten's paper on the original trial and the reopening of the Emmett Till case.
- An ongoing documentary project about the history of the integration of the University Medical Center and the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Future Academic Service
As part of its strategic plan for the next five years, the Winter Institute will create a world class multi-disciplinary center for scholarly research, study, and teaching on race and the impact of race and racism across traditional academic areas.
The needs of communities served by the Institute will help identify academic research projects for the Institute. The research capacity and accumulated knowledge of the academic arm will provide hard data to ground the community building programs and provide protocols to measure results and verify best practices.
The teaching function of the academic center will support the Institute’s education outreach programs, and assist in developing curriculum on matters of race. The Institute’s local programs will maintain the Institute’s focus on achieving tangible results in the everyday world, provide field verification for academic research, expand the University’s definition of teaching and education to include service programs, and bring local communities and other non-campus constituencies within the University’s mission.
The Institute will provide a setting where educators, scholars, business and professional leaders, policy makers, politicians, local community leaders and members, and grassroots activists can meet to listen to and learn from each other on matters of race and racism.