As part of a continued effort by Mississippi College (MC) to bring lived and scholarly expertise of the African American experience to its campus and the larger metro Jackson community, MC has secured Dr. Crystal Sanders from Emory University as its 2024 African American Studies Lecture Series speaker. Sanders is an associate professor of African American Studies and will share her award-winning research from her book A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle. Her work has earned many important recognitions including, but not limited to, the 2017 Critics Choice Award and New Scholar’s Book Award from the American Educational Research Association, the C. Vann Woodward Prize from the Southern Historical Association, the Huggins-Quarles Award from the Organization of American Historians, the Equity Award from the American Historical Association, and the Willie D. Halsell article prize from the Mississippi Historical Society. Sanders explores how working-class Black women, in collaboration with the federal government, created the Child Development Group of MS in 1965, a Head Start program that not only gave poor Black children access to early childhood education but also provided Black women with greater opportunities for political activism during a crucial time in the unfolding of the Civil Rights movement.
Sanders’ lecture will serve as the keynote for Mississippi College’s month-long theme in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.