RACE TO THE SOUTH:
From the Klan to Katrina
The 4th Civil Rights South Seminar
with Julian Bond
Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana
March 13-19, 2010
Program Now Open for Registration
"I want participants to come away with some sense that most of the movement's participants weren't the famous; they were the nameless--ordinary people who in extra-ordinary times did extraordinary things. --Julian Bond
Program Overview | Faculty | Registration
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Join Julian Bond, one of the foremost leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, Chairman of the National NAACP since 1988, and Professor of History at the University of Virginia, on a journey through the history of the Civil Rights Movement and its effects that still ripple today. No book can prepare you for the experience of standing in the places and hearing from those who lived the struggle and survived to tell one of the nation’s most remarkable stories.
On our travels together through Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, we will visit the sites and meet the people that help illuminate the social, economic, and political significance of race to the South, from its origins in slavery to the modern Civil Rights movement. We will hear from the children, now adults, who integrated the Little Rock Schools; from some of the great ministers and political leaders of the South; and from great American historians as well.
As we travel a trail so often marked by poverty and pain, we will also explore the creativity, culture and community created by the African-American citizens of the South, sampling music, art, and food. As we look at both history and current events, we will gain a deeper understanding of the significance of race to the South and to the nation.
Emmett Louis Till
- To see the CNN interview with Julian Bond about the 2009 trip, please click here.
-To view the itineraries from past programs, please click here
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
- Stand in the places where history happened—Central High School, Money Road, New Orleans' 9th Ward and more—with the people who made and continue to live that history.
- Meet the people whose personal experience has become our history, people like Minnie Jean Brown Trickey who, as a young teenager, confronted the National Guard and a city to integrate Little Rock's Central High School.
- Attend American gospel and soul music singer, the Minister Al Green's Full Gospel Tabernacle Church.
- Gain a comprehensive appreciation of the entire Civil Rights movement, from its earliest and often unreported days in the mid-1950s through the more high-profile years that followed.
- Explore not just the death, but the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the legacies of the many, famous and not so famous, who stood beside him
- Visit historic Clarksdale, MS, the birthplace of the blues and experience the rhythms of a wholly American cultural phenomenon. Dine in Morgan Freeman’s famed Clarksdale restaurant.
- Meet Douglas Brinkley, historian and national media commentator whose book, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast won the 2007 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and who appeared in Spike Lee's documentary about Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.
- Spend a week with Julian Bond and his wife, attorney Pam Horowitz, a veteran herself of the ongoing battle against social injustice. Get to know Bond and Horowitz and the experiences that have shaped their lives, and the nation’s.
- Enjoy the rich, deeply rooted culture of the Black South, from the House of Dance and Feathers and Cat Head Blues and Folk Art Gallery to soul food restaurants and jazz clubs.
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And more...
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
This journey is designed for all those who want to discover more about one of the most fascinating, devastating, and ultimately inspiring periods in our young nation’s history. It is meant for people of all generations and all races and religions—from teachers looking to broaden their horizons and students looking to do the same, to friends and families who want to both share history and keep a legacy alive.
With its combination of noted experts and real-life heroes who fought the good fight and lived its triumphs and tragedies, this is an experience that is not to be missed and never to be forgotten.
PROGRAM LOCATION
Our program begins in Memphis, Tennessee’s Civil Rights and Music heartland; and travels through Little Rock, Arkansas; Clarksdale, Greenwood, and Natchez, Mississippi, and along the beautiful Natchez Trace; to the ‘Big Easy’ - New Orleans, Louisiana, where it will end. Travel will be aboard a comfortable charter bus for the entire program.
We suggest booking an open jaw ticket, arriving in Memphis and departing from New Orleans. The bus will NOT return to Memphis.
PROGRAM LODGING
Participants will be lodged in hotels for one night in Memphis at the Doubletree Downtown, two nights in Little Rock at the Courtyard Marriott Downtown, one night in Greenwood, MS at the Alluvian Hotel, and two nights in the Hampton Inn Convention Center in New Orleans.
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Program Information | Faculty | Registration
Lead Faculty
 Horace Julian Bond,
Chairman of the NAACP and Professor, Department of History, University of Virginia
Julian Bond is one of the foremost leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement. Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1988, Bond first entered the national picture as one of the founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the early 1960s. During this time he also led a series of anti-segregation programs in public facilities in Georgia. Bond was the first President of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a public interest law firm based in Montgomery, Alabama, and remains its President Emeritus and a member of its board of directors today. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965 and was unseated due to his publicly expressed opposition to the Vietnam War. Bond took his case to the United States Supreme Court, where in 1966 he won a 9-0 decision and regained his seat based on freedom of speech. He served four terms in the Georgia House and six terms in the Georgia Senate. Bond also ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, losing to fellow civil rights leader John Lewis. During the 1980s and 90s, Bond earned a reputation as an educator, teaching at universities including American, Drexel, Harvard and the University of Virginia, where he remains on the faculty today. He continues to be in demand as a writer and lecturer on the civil rights movement and the condition of African Americans and the poor. Bond is a well-known figure in the media thanks to high profile positions including hosting America’s Black Forum, The Today Show, the radio program Byline, his nationally-syndicated newspaper column Viewpoint and more. He narrated the critically-acclaimed PBS series Eyes on the Prize in 1987 and 1990. Read more about Julian Bond here. Julian Bond has received a 2008 Library of Congress Living Legend Award. Please click here to read more about this prestigious award. |
INVITED GUEST LECTURERS (subject to change) Pamela Horowitz, Civil Rights Attorney. Ms. Horowitz received her B.A. in Economics from Macalester College and her J.D. from Boston University School of Law. Since then, she has worked as a lawyer in private practice including acting as co-lead counsel during the successful ten-month trial of the largest Title VII employment discrimination suit ever litigated; with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in areas of race and gender discrimination; Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on civil rights litigation covering a broad spectrum of constitutional and statutory issues. She is currently a board member of the Horton (Dave Matthews) Foundation and Ixtatan Foundation, both in Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as participating in a wide variety of "non-official" activities with the NAACP as spouse of the Board Chairman.  Douglas Brinkley, is the fellow in history at the Baker Institute and a professor of history at Rice University. He completed his bachelor’s degree at The Ohio State University and received his doctorate in U.S. diplomatic history from Georgetown University. He then spent a year teaching history at the U.S. Naval Academy and Princeton University. While a professor at Hofstra University, Brinkley spearheaded the American Odyssey course, in which he took students on cross-country treks on which they visited historic sites and met seminal figures in politics and literature. Before coming to Rice, Brinkley served as professor of history and director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization at Tulane University. From 1994 to 2005 he was the Stephen E. Ambrose Professor of History and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. Brinkley’s most recent publications include “The Reagan Diaries” (2007), which he edited, and the New York Times best-seller “The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast” (2006), which was the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy prize and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He has received honorary doctorates from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. Brinkley is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times Book Review and American Heritage, as well as a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly. In a recent profile, the Chicago Tribune deemed him “America’s new past master.”
Scott Barretta, a resident of Oxford, Mississippi, is a principal writer and researcher for the Mississippi Blues Trail; the host of the radio program Highway 61 on Mississippi Public Broadcasting; and an instructor of blues, popular culture, and writing courses at the University of Mississippi. He is the former editor of Living Blues magazine, published by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, and worked as a principal writer and researcher for the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, having received an MA in sociology in 1992. He blogs about Mississippi blues at www.highway61radio.com.
Minnie Jean Brown Trickey was one of a group of African-American teenagers known as the "Little Rock Nine." On September 25th 1957, under the gaze of 1,200 armed soldiers and a worldwide audience, Minnie Jean Brown Trickey faced down an angry mob and helped to desegregate Central High. This seminal event in American history was just the beginning of Minnie Jean's long career as a crusader for civil rights. She has spent her life fighting for the rights of minority groups and the dispossessed. For her work, she has received the U.S. Congressional Medal, the Wolf Award, the Spingarn Medal, and many other citations and awards.
Allan Hammons is the President of Hammons & Associates, an advertising, marketing and graphic design firm in Greenwood, Mississippi. He played an instrumental role in the formation, design, and execution of the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, and served as the Museum’s Interim Executive Director from 2002-2007. Hammons & Associates also works closely with the Mississippi Blues Trail, creating the designs and coordinating the physical creation of the markers. Hammons has worked closely with Fred Karl of Greenwood-based Viking Range in the dramatic transformation of downtown Greenwood, including the restoration of older buildings to their original designs.
Johanna Miller Lewis, Ph.D., is Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of History at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. A native of Baltimore, she holds a Ph.D. from the College of William and Mary, an M.A. from Wake Forest University, and an A.B. from Salem College. Lewis has a book, Artisans in the North Carolina Backcountry, a documentary "Time of Fear", and numerous articles, presentations, and exhibits to her credit.
Lewis came to UALR in 1991 and quickly became involved in numerous community history projects. For the National Dunbar History project in 1996, Lewis researched and curated the exhibit "'The Finest High School for Negro Boys and Girls': Dunbar High School in Little Rock, AR, 1929-1955". As Project Manager for the Central High Museum & Visitor Center, Lewis helped create, “All the World is Watching Us’: Little Rock and the 1957 Crisis,” the award-winning introductory exhibit to the 1957 desegregation crisis. Later, as a contract historian to Central High School National Historic Site, she wrote the historical resource study for the site, conducted an oral history project, and helped create the exhibits in the new Visitor Center which opened in Fall 2007.
From 2001-2004, Lewis directed “Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas,” a $2.8 million initiative about the two War Relocation Centers in the Arkansas delta which culminated with exhibits, a documentary, and a conference.
Bill Luckett, who received his BA in American Government from UVA in 1970, is a Clarksdale-based lawyer and entrepreneur. He has played an important role in the transformation of Clarksdale into a center for blues tourism over the last decade, and is the co-owner, with Morgan Freeman, of Ground Zero Blues Club and the fine dining restaurant Madidi. Luckett is active in community and state issues, and sits on the advisory boards of organizations including the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center and the Mississippi Blues Foundation, and is on the Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Heritage Trust.
Carver Randle has been active in civil rights issues in his native Indianola since the 1960s, and as the president of the local chapter of the NAACP worked closely with Fannie Lou Hamer on issues including housing and education. He received his law degree from the University of Mississippi in 1973 and has long operated a private practice in Indianola. He was instrumental in the creation of the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpetive Center, and sits on its board of directors. He also serves as B.B. King’s personal attorney in Mississippi, and helps oversee the operations the Club Ebony, a nightclub founded in the 1940s that King purchased in 2008 in order to help preserve an important part of local history.
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Program Staff
Joan Elias Gore, Ph.D., Director of Travel Programs at the University of Virginia School of Continuing & Professional Studies.
Cynthia Smith, Program Administrator.
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Program Information | Faculty | Registration
PROGRAM Registration
Program Tuition and Fees include:
• Six nights hotel accommodations.
• All meals (except two dinners), breaks and receptions.
• Lively discussions and interactive lectures with Julian Bond and a host of special guests at each site.
• All admissions and tours.
• All transportation within the program, beginning in Memphis at the hotel and ending in New Orleans.
Airfare or other transportation to Memphis and from New Orleans at the beginning and conclusion of the trip is not included in the program fee.
TUITION AND FEES (Reserve your spot with a $500 deposit):
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$2,950 per person in a double hotel room (mutual requests only).
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$3,455 per person in a single hotel room.
TO REGISTER FOR THIS COURSE, Please contact program administrator Cynthia Smith at 1-800-346-3882, 434-243-2277 OR travelandlearn@virginia.edu. |
We encourage you to register early, as enrollment in this program fills quickly.
Payment information will be provided upon registration. After December 8, 2009, payment in full is expected at the time of registration.
Please click HERE to download the Application for Permission to Enroll
BOOKING HOTEL SPACE BEFORE OR AFTER THE PROGRAM DATES:
Our logistical partner in this program, International Seminar Design, will book pre- and post- program hotel space for you in our opening and closing destinations, if you wish. Please contact them at 1-202-244-1448 or e-mail at perdita.welch@isditravel.com.
WITHDRAWAL & OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION
If you withdraw in writing before December 8, 2009, you will receive a refund of monies paid. After December 8, 2009, the date by which all program balances are due, if you withdraw in writing and it is before January 8, 2010, you will receive a refund minus the $500 deposit. In the event withdrawal is necessary after January 8, 2010, there will be no refund but you may nominate another person to attend the program in your place and his or her fees will be waived in full.
We highly recommend you purchase travel cancellation insurance that covers both your airfare and our program fees. Some insurers are also offering protection against job loss or income disruption. Confirm what your policy covers.
Our cooperating logistical vendor, International Seminar Design, can provide trip cancellation insurance for the full amount of tuition and fees for our program. Visit their website or call them at 800-243-3174.*
Useful travel insurance information can also be found at www.TripInsuranceStore.com or 888-407-3854. You may also wish to check with your local travel agency for recommended sources.
Peace Frogs Travel/Outfitters, a registered travel vendor with the state of Virginia and a full-service travel agency, has worked with our participants in the past to guide them through booking appropriate travel insurance to fit their needs, including insuring expenses for the Travel & Learn program itself. They can also book airfare and arrange car rental, rail tickets/passes, hotel bookings and other excursions. If you wish to work with them, visit their website at www.peacefrogstravel.com or call 434-977-1415.
Each participant must be covered by a health insurance policy while on this program.
If you are unsure of what your health insurance policy covers when you travel from home, please confirm your coverage with your insurer. The University of Virginia Travel & Learn program purchases MEDEX WORLDWIDE TRAVEL ASSISTANCE coverage for all program participants. Please note, this is not trip cancellation insurance and it is not health insurance coverage. MEDEX benefits include an essential 24-hour, multilingual travel emergency service, providing help during emergency medical or security situations, replacement prescriptions, emergency travel arrangements, and emergency evacuations. Your MEDEX card will be issued you upon arrival at your travel destination.
Information about other travel resources including airport safety and security, currency, health care, packing, passports, personal safety, telephoning, and other useful information can be found on our travel resources page.
There will be no refund for unused portions of the program, including but not limited to, missed meals, lodging nights, and sightseeing.
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QUESTIONS? CONCERNS?
Please feel free to contact us by telephone at 800-346-3882 or 434-243-2277 or e-mail us at travelandlearn@virginia.edu.
Important information for Teachers: Many licensed teachers in the state of Virginia use their participation in Travel & Learn programs to earn professional development points applicable to meeting the requirements for the renewal of their teaching license. (http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Compliance/TeacherED/remanual.pdf). Teachers from other states may also be able to use their program participation for similar license renewal or professional development requirements and should check with their schools or state policy for requirements. Upon request, we will provide teachers with documentation describing their participation in this program.
For students: Travel & Learn seminars are noncredit adult learning programs. Some students use their participation in our Travel & Learn seminars as a foundation for a research paper in a course or independent study program they have arranged at their home university. Upon request, we will provide documentation describing your participation in this program for you to present to your home school faculty.
For University of Virginia faculty and staff: Travel & Learn seminars are noncredit adult learning courses. You may apply to Human Resources to use your educational benefit to pay for the tuition portion of our Program Tuition and Fees. Please contact us at 434-243-2277 or travelandlearn@virginia.edu for further information.
*International Seminar Travel Insurance Terms and Conditions: Please note that a Post-Departure Plan does not include pre-departure cancellation coverage. You only will be covered for pre-tour cancellation if you purchase the Comprehensive Protection Plan, which includes both Pre-Departure and Post-Departure coverage. If you would like to take advantage of the insurance policy’s “Pre-Existing Medical Conditions Waiver,” please carefully review “The 14-Day Advantage” on the insurance website above. NOTE: The date on your confirmation letter will indicate the date from which the 14 day waiver begins
