The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi

This talk traces the roots of the modern civil rights movement to World War II, a movement that began long before the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 and lasted long after Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis in 1968, a movement that in many ways never ended. Specifically, Dr. Luckett discusses the major people and events of the modern civil rights movement in Mississippi like Emmett Till; Medgar and Myrlie Evers; Ross Barnett; the Citizens’ Council and the Sovereignty Commission; the Freedom Rides; James Meredith and the 1962 integration of Ole Miss; the 1963 Woolworth’s sit-in; leading civil rights organizations like the Council of Federal Organizations, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the NAACP; 1964 Freedom Summer; Fannie Lou Hamer; the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; Anne Moody and Coming of Age in Mississippi; the Meredith March against Fear; and many other topics in the field.

Speakers Expertise:

Dr. Robert Luckett is an Associate Professor in the Department of History as well as the Director of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University. His research interests include the modern civil rights movement, African American history, American history, and public history. His book, Joe T. Patterson and the White South’s Dilemma: Evolving Resistance to Black Advancement was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2015.