Delta Center speaks to Leland Rotary

Delta Center staff establish one of the new locations participating in the MDNHA Passport Program.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning was recently asked to be a guest at the Leland Rotary Club. Dr. Rolando Herts, director of the Delta Center and the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, gave the audience an update on the MDNHA and its new Passport Program.

Delta Center staff members Lee Aylward and Heather Miller briefed the group on how the MDNHA Passport Program is working to bring tourists to the Delta region.

The Delta Center then delivered passport stations to two Leland locations that have elected to take part in the program — the Kermit the Frog Museum and the Highway 61 Blues Museum.

The MDNHA sponsored the initial placement of one passport station in each of the Delta’s 18 counties. In Washington County, where Leland is located, the first passport was placed at the Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau. Leland is the first municipality in the Delta to sponsor its own participation in the program by purchasing passport stations.

“The Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area is pleased that Leland has taken the initiative to sponsor passport stations in their community through these iconic museums,” said Herts. “All MDNHA municipalities have the same opportunity to participate in the Passport Program. When done in a strategic way, participation in the program can encourage increased visitor activity, including local dining and shopping, as well as positive word of mouth about community attractions.”

Photos of the Leland passport stations will be included on the official list of MDNHA Passport Program locations, available at http://www.msdeltaheritage.com/ms-delta-national-heritage-area-mdnha-passport/.

Delta-based municipalities, businesses, cultural attractions, heritage sites, or other organizations that are interested in participating in the Passport Program should contact The Delta Center regarding the application process. For more information, call 662-846-4311 or email Heather Miller at hmiller@deltastate.edu.

B.B. King AllStar Choir to perform at Winning the Race

The B.B. King AllStar Choir will perform at the opening reception of the Winning the Race conference March 30 at 5:30 p.m. in the Bologna Performing Arts Center.

The B.B. King AllStar Choir will perform at the opening reception of the Winning the Race conference at Delta State University March 30. The reception takes place at the Bologna Performing Arts Center at 5:30 pm.

The opening event is sponsored by the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, The Delta Center for Culture and Learning, Vicksburg National Military Park and Eastern National for the National Park Service Centennial. The event will also feature special guest Robert Stanton, former director of the National Park Service. It will be free and open to the public.

The choir, which was founded in 2013, is sponsored by the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola. It is comprised of musically gifted youth grades six through twelve. They are selected by audition from communities throughout the Delta region, including Greenwood, Indianola, Cleveland, Boyle and Ruleville. 

“It has been a privilege and a joy to work with such talented, enthusiastic young singers,” said Dr. Cheryl L. Weiss, choir director. “We are pleased to be working with the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area to showcase some of the best and brightest young musicians that our region has to offer.”

The choir was one of only nine youth choirs selected to perform at the Crescent City Choral Festival in New Orleans. They also have sung for Governor Phil Bryant and other prominent Mississippi Politicians at the Delta Council Meeting, the WABG-TV March of Dimes Telethon and in a private concert for B.B. King. This spring they will sing the National Anthem for the Mississippi Braves baseball team and be featured at the Little Walter Music Festival in Alexandria, La.

Follow all Winning the Race conference updates at http://www.deltastate.edu/president/winning-the-race/.

The MDNHA is a partnership between the people of the Mississippi Delta and the National Park Service. The MDNHA was designated by U.S. Congress in 2009 and is governed by a board of directors representing agencies and organizations defined in the Congressional legislation. More information about the MDNHA, including the complete approved management plan, is available at www.msdeltaheritage.com. 

The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the MDNHA and is the home of the International Delta Blues Project. For more information, visit http://www.deltastate.edu/academics/delta-center-for-culture-and-learning/.

Delta Center hosts Lehrhaus Judaica

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning recently hosted "Jews, Blues, and Jazz Tour" from Lehrhous Judaica of Berkeley, Calif.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning recently conducted a day-long learning experience for Lehrhaus Judaica from Berkeley, Calif. 

The 33-person tour from the Bay Area was billed as “Jews, Blues, and Jazz,” and the group was on its way from Memphis to New Orleans, with stops in Cleveland, Greenwood, and Natchez.

The tour was led by Fred Rosenbaum, an educator and historian who founded the organization in 1974. Rosenbaum has been a faculty member at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where for five years he taught a semester-long course on the Holocaust to Christian seminarians.

Rosenbaum has lectured across the United States and abroad and has been the traveling scholar on numerous Lehrhaus-JCCSF study tours — to Eastern and Western Europe, Israel and the Middle East, South America and Cuba, and his native New York.

The Delta Center’s Lee Aylward introduced the group to the area, many on their first trip to the region. This was the group’s second year to visit the Delta.

Learn more about the group at www.lehrhaus.org.

Fred Rosenbaum (left), traveling scholar; Lee Aylward, the Delta Center; Vernita Lyons, tour coordinator; and Ariel Goldstein, tour director.

The mission of the Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area and is the home of the International Delta Blues Project. For more information, visit http://www.deltastate.edu/academics/delta-center-for-culture-and-learning/.

Delta Center hosts Hillel Group

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning's Lee Aylward, center, recently provided a tour to the Hillel Group from the University of Maryland.

The Hillel Group from the University of Maryland was recently in the Delta on an alternative spring break trip. The group made a stop at Delta State University to be introduced to the Mississippi Delta. The Delta Center for Culture and Learning’s Lee Aylward provided the group an overview of the Delta and university while taking them to visit heritage sites.

During their visit, the group met at Temple Adath Israel in Cleveland and enjoyed an evening meal with the congregation. Temple Israel is a Reform Jewish synagogue in Cleveland that was organized in 1923.

The Mission of the Maryland Hillel group is to enhance the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world. Hillel actively seeks to engage uninvolved Jewish students on their own terms and to provide them with Jewish opportunities that are meaningful and appealing to them. Students are empowered to take responsibility for their Jewish identity, whether they wish to participate in a community service project, express themselves artistically, participate in a social event, engage in informal Jewish learning or attend religious services. Any student may participate with Hillel – no membership is required. Hillel is committed to a pluralistic vision of Judaism that embraces all movements. 

The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area and is the home of the International Delta Blues Project. For more information, visit http://www.deltastate.edu/academics/delta-center-for-culture-and-learning/.

Delta Center provides Emory University of Atlanta a learning tour

Dr. Rolando Herts provided students from Emory University of Atlanta an overview of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage area.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University hosted Emory University of Atlanta for an experiential learning tour of the Mississippi Delta region.

Lee Aylward, program associate for education and community outreach for The Delta Center, provided an introduction of Delta history to the group, and Director Dr. Rolando Herts provided an overview of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area.

The group traveled throughout the week around the Delta experiencing cultural heritage sites. The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area and is the home of the International Delta Blues Project.

For more information, visit www.deltastate.edu/academics/delta-center-for-culture-and-learning.

Delta Center hosts Hillel Jewish group

Lee Aylward (second from right) of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning recently hosted a tour for the Hillel Jewish student group from the University of Virginia. They visited various Delta sites, including the "Cast of Blues," a collection of 54 blues masks found in the lobby of Ewing Hall at Delta State.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University recently hosted members of the Hillel Jewish student group at the University of Virginia.

Hillel is the largest Jewish student organization in the world. By participating in life-changing trips and campus initiatives, students learn to make a meaningful impact on the future of people and the world while they grow intellectually, socially, and spiritually.

The Delta Center’s Lee Aylward provided a Delta tour to significant sites in the Delta, and director Dr. Rolando Herts gave them an overview of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area.

The group will spend time throughout the Delta for a week conducting service projects and learning about the different communities. 

The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area and is the home of the International Delta Blues Project. For more information, visit http://www.deltastate.edu/academics/delta-center-for-culture-and-learning/.

Delta Center tours with Mississippi State students

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University recently provided an experiential learning tour to Mississippi State University's Alternative Spring Break group.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University recently provided an experiential learning tour of the Mississippi Delta region to Mississippi State University’s Alternative Spring Break group, which is sponsored by the Office of Student Leadership and Community Engagement at MSU.

The group was led by student volunteers and were housed for the week at the North Greenwood Baptist Church. They were treated to an introduction to Delta history by the Delta Center’s Lee Aylward.

Delta Center director Dr. Rolando Herts provided an overview of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area. The group travelled throughout the week around the Delta experiencing cultural heritage sites, agricultural sites and educational groups.

The group spent their evenings watching movies about the Delta and reflecting on lessons learned throughout the day.

The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area and is the home of the International Delta Blues Project. For more information, visit http://www.deltastate.edu/academics/delta-center-for-culture-and-learning.

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.

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.

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.