This annual celebration, which began in 1990, is a theme-based lecture series enhanced by films, workshops, exhibitions, book signings, concerts, discussions and more. The conference is made possible in part by the Mississippi Humanities Council. Here’s a list of presenters:
Dr. Rebecca Hall, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts
(Simon and Schuster, 2021)
Dr. Jonathan White, A House Built by Slaves, African American Visitors to
the Lincoln White House (Rowman and Littlefi eld, 2022)
Dr. Joan DeJean, Mutinous Women, How French Convicts Became
Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast (Basic Books, 2022)
Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, Skirts, Fashioning Modern Femininity
in the Twentieth Century (St. Martin’s Press, 2022)
Julie Hines Mabus, Confessions of a Southern Beauty Queen (University
Press of MS, 2022)
Dr. Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd, Southern Beauty, Race, Ritual, and Memory
in the Modern South (University of Georgia Press, 2022)
Dr. Jodi Skipper, Behind the Big House: Reconciling Slavery, Race, and
Heritage in the U.S. South (University of Iowa Press, 2022)
Amy Argetsinger, There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America (Atria/
One Signal Publishers, 2021)
Kristen Green, The Devil’s Half Acre, the Untold Story of How One Woman
Liberated the South’s Most Notorious Slave Jail (Seal Press, 2022)
Danielle Dreilinger, The Secret History of Home Economics, How
Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way
We Live (WW Norton and Co, 2021)
Dr. Thavolia Glymph, The Women’s Fight: The Civil War’s Battles for Home,
Freedom, and Nation (University of North Carolina Press, 2021)
Shelby Harriel, Behind the Rifl e, Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi
(University Press of Mississippi, 2019)
Dr. Rebecca Sharpless, Grain and Fire, a History of Baking in the American
South (University of North Carolina Press, 2022)
Diane C. McPhail, The Seamstress of New Orleans (A John Scognamiglio
Book, 2022) and The Abolitionist’s Daughter (A John Scognamiglio Book,
2019)
Dr. Sarah Adlakha, She Wouldn’t Change a Thing (Forge Books, 2021) and
Midnight on the Marne (Forge Books, 2022)
Valerie Martin, Property (Vintage, 2004), Mary Reilly (Vintage, 2001), The
Great Divorce (Bantam, 1995)
Christine Wiltz, The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld
(Da Capo Press, 2001)
Nicole A. Taylor, Watermelon & Red Birds, A Cookbook for Juneteenth and
Black Celebrations (Simon and Schuster, 2022)
Dr. Gail Myers, Rhythms of the Land, a multimedia fi lm documentary, 2022
Timothy Givens, The Saloon, a fi lm documentary, 2022
