Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University: At the Vanguard (At the Vanguard #2) [9781917273442]

Overview

Second volume in the unprecedented series by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture highlighting museum and archival collections at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Featuring more than seventy-five images alongside essays by historians, scholars, and educators, this publication tells the powerful story of Jackson State University (JSU) and its Margaret Walker Center, an archive and museum dedicated to the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of African American history and culture.

Essays in this book highlight JSU’s remarkable history as a public HBCU in Mississippi and its status and work today as the state’s only urban research university. Also featured is the artistic, academic, and activist legacy of Margaret Walker, who founded the Black Studies Institute in 1968, now named in her honor. Illustrated on these pages are examples of the archival holdings at JSU and the Margaret Walker Center as well as engaging stories about notable activists and scholars, such as photographers Doris Derby and Roy Lewis, educators Jane Ellen McAllister and Frankye Adams-Johnson, and cartographer William D. Lamson. Important events in JSU’s history include the tragic 1970 police shootings and the groundbreaking 1973 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, underscoring both the daunting obstacles and the intellectual and artistic achievements at JSU. Throughout this volume, the campus vibrancy and resiliency are prominently featured in images that invite readers to examine the richness of the University’s collections.