Delta Center provides a tour for a Jewish group

The Delta Center recently gave a tour to the TENT group.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University recently provided an introduction to the Delta for the TENT group sponsored by the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson.

The TENT program is a series of week-long seminars that immerse 21-30 year old Jews in full impact experiences of culture, cuisine and community. This group was led Rachel Myers of the Institute who described the week- long program as “beginning in New Orleans and spending a week travelling the Delta exploring the Jewish experience in one of this nation’s most distinctive, complicated, and fascinating regions, discovering the best that the South has to offer.

Music, art, food, and visits to Jewish communities large and small made this a week the participants will never forget. On their stop in Cleveland, they were introduced to the Delta by Dr. Rolando Herts and Lee Aylward of the Delta Center. They enjoyed a meal with the congregation of Temple Adath Israel and topped the evening off with a visit to Po Monkey’s, one of the last surviving rural juke joints or “jook” houses, as documented by Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston and blues folklorist Barry Lee Pearson.

Delta Center celebrates French connection

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The Highway 66 Blues Association from Cahors, France, recently made a stop on their Delta tour in Cleveland.  The group enjoyed barbeque at Sweets and live music at Po Monkey’s with Big A and his band.  This visiting blues group was responsible for raising the money and working with the Mississippi Blues Commission to install a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker in Cahors in July.  According to the marker, French enthusiasts spurred international interest in Black American music by releasing records, arranging tours, and conducting pioneering research on jazz and blues. The Cahors Blues Festival, first staged in l982, has built upon the long tradition through its presentation of hundreds of musicians, including many from the state of Mississippi.  The Cahors marker is the second marker that is outside of the United States.  There is also a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker in Notodden, Norway.

German visitors

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We have started out our week with German visitors.  Dr. Michael Groth and his wife are visiting the Delta this week.  Dr. Groth is with the NPR of Germany, Deutschlandradio Kultur.  He is reporting on the Delta and the blues.

Russian visitors view Blues Mask Collection

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Pictured here is Tricia Walker the director of the Delta Music Institute with twelve visitors from Perm University in Perm, Russia. They traveled to the Delta as a part of a U.S.- Russia- Peer Dialogue Program. They are shown here visiting the renowned Blues Mask Collection in the Ewing Building Lobby on the campus of Delta State University.

The grant is through the U.S.-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program and is titled “Rivers of Music — Rivers of Culture.” Delta State will use the opportunity to build on existing partnerships with Perm State University, located on the banks of the Kama River in Perm, Russia.

To help foster greater contacts between Americans and Russians, the State Department launched the program in 2013. Grants up to $100,000 are provided to support collaboration, meetings, virtual interactions, exchanges and internships between American and Russian organizations.

The program will utilize music as the universal language, allowing students to explore the cultures, histories and heritages of the two countries.

There are three components specific to the Rivers of Music — Rivers of Culture: 1) Mississippi Delta Immersion Experience, in which faculty and students from Perm State will travel to Delta State in October to participate in the International Conference on the Blues, as well as other Bridging the Blues events; 2) Telebridge Project-Music of Two Rivers, a series of webinars held in the spring semester held for both universities; and 3) Permski Krai Immersion Experience, in which faculty and students from Delta State will travel to Perm in June 2015 to participate in their festival season and provide a mini summer Delta Music Institute camp experience to Perm students.

Delta State President William N. LaForge first became affiliated with Perm State as a visiting professor in 2008. He returned in 2010 as a Fulbright Fellow and has continued to network with Perm colleagues since taking office at Delta State in 2013.

“This grant and the opportunities for our students and faculty are great examples of how we can foster excellent academic exchanges with foreign university partners,” said LaForge. “It will allow students at both universities — 7,000 miles apart — to participate in common theme programming.

“This is a wonderful program that supports our international exchange program goals.”

Additional goals of the partnership include: develop and launch a lifelong learning web-based education course using the music of the American South and the Perm region for replication and dissemination among American and Russian universities and communities; promote future exchanges between the two universities; and facilitate improved peer-to-peer understanding of the two cultures.

New faculty learn about Delta

A group of new faculty members at Delta State University were treated to an introduction of the Mississippi Delta and the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area by Dr. Rolando Herts and Lee Aylward of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning on Oct. 30.

Dr. Beverly Moon, dean of Graduate and Continuing Studies and Research, organized the educational session at the Charlie Capps Archives & Museum. Emily Jones, university archivist, also provided an overview of various resources and services available at the facility.

Those who participated in the session included (l to r): Amy McAdams, instructor in health, physical education and recreation; Dr. Fatematul Jannat, visiting assistant professor in social justice and criminology; Dr. Amit Verma, assistant professor of logistics; Melaku Tadesse, assistant professor of commercial aviation; Eric Owens, visiting instructor in social justice and criminology; Dr. James Gerald, assistant professor of physics; Lee Aylward, Delta Center; Dr. Sharon Hamilton, assistant professor of chemistry; Kalilah Kemp, instructor in HPER/athletic training clinical education coordinator; Dr. Rolando Herts, director, Delta Center; and Emily Jones, university archivist.

Another Blues Trail unveiling

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Dr. Herts participated in the unveiling of the 190th marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail, "Where the Southern Crosses the Dog," at Moorhead, MS, this morning (10/2/14.)  Pictured with Dr. Herts (second from the left) are Robert Terrell, of the B.B. King Museum, Mary Margaret Miller with Mississippi Tourism, and George Holland, Mayor of Moorhead.

Delta Center offers history and culture summer workshops

Participants and staff of the June, 2014 Most Southern Place workshop stopped for a photo at the 1927 Flood Museum in Greenville.

For the sixth year, Delta State University has received major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks in American History and Culture program. Funding will allow the Delta Center for Culture and Learning to offer two week-long workshops focusing on the Delta’s rich cultural heritage in June and July of 2015. Each workshop will serve 40 K-12 teachers who will come from Mississippi and across the U.S.

Dr. Luther Brown, former DCCCL said, “Every time we offer this workshop we have over 400 applications coming from all 50 states. This is a very exciting workshop, and we hope to draw applicants from all of Mississippi and the rest of the country.”

Classroom teachers in public, private, parochial and charter schools, as well as home-schooling parents and school librarians, are eligible to participate. They will receive a stipend to assist with expenses and gather with leading humanities scholars and Delta State staff to develop powerful lesson plans relating to the Delta’s heritage and the heritage of their own home regions.

The workshops are titled “The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, History and Culture in the Mississippi Delta.” Participants will travel throughout the Delta as they visit sites where significant events occurred.

Discussions will focus on civil rights and political leadership, immigrants’ experiences in the Delta, the blues, the great migration, agriculture, the Mississippi River and more. Participants will sample Delta foods, visit local museums and listen to the blues. Field trips will roam as far as Greenville, Greenwood, Indianola, Ruleville, Mound Bayou, Clarksdale, Memphis and stops in between.

Brown will return to the DCCL to direct the workshops between June 21-27 and July 12-18, 2015. Each workshop begins on Sunday evening and runs through the following Saturday afternoon.

Participants can earn five graduate semester hours upon completion of the workshop.

The DCCL at Delta State promotes the understanding of the heritage of the Mississippi Delta. The center will be assisted during the workshops by Delta State faculty members along with faculty from the University of Mississippi, Sam Houston State University, Jackson State University, the University of Memphis and other institutions of higher learning. Local Delta citizens will also tell their own stories and experiences.

There are only 21 Landmarks in American History and Culture topics offered during 2015. The topics range from the transcontinental railroad, mining in the far West, the American Revolution in the Northern Frontier and several workshops focusing on the civil rights movement. A complete list can be found at http://www.neh.gov/divisions/education/summer-programs.

For more information about the Landmarks in American History and Culture workshops, visit the DCCL’s website at http://deltacenterforcultureandlearning.com/southern-place-workshop/, or contact the center at 662-846-4311.

Celebrating rice

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Dr. Rolando Herts, the new Director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University samples some of the many rice dishes prepared for the 24th annual Rice Tasting Luncheon. This was Dr. Herts' first luncheon; I bet he will be back next year! The luncheon celebrates our Delta farmers and rice production in the Delta!

Alysia Burton Steele's Delta Jewels in the New York Times

Here is a great New York Times article about Alysia Burton Steele and her Delta Jewels book. The Delta Center and the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area are proud to be working with this talented author and photographer. Delta Jewels is a compelling book about Mississippi Delta church mothers. 

Red-letter day!

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Thursday, August 21st, was a red-letter day in the life of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area! We celebrated with partners from throughout the Delta the acceptance of the MDNHA Management Plan, while also saying "goodbye" to our former director, Dr. Luther Brown and "hello" to our new director Dr. Rolando Herts!!! Thanks to everyone for a truly wonderful celebration!!