The acting chairman for the National Endowment for the Humanities, Jon Peede, will be visiting ̨ʹٷվ Community College’s Utica Campus for a celebration of the legacy of founder William H. Holtzclaw.
The program is at 9 a.m. Friday Dec. 8 in the Walter Washington amphitheater on the Utica Campus.
The celebration will focus on Holtzclaw’s contributions to African American education. The historic Utica Jubilee Singers will present several selections, and there will also be presentations of research projects and an overview of humanities activities at the Utica Campus.
Peede, who grew up in Brandon and now lives in Virginia, is expected to make brief remarks.
He holds degrees from Vanderbilt University and the University of Mississippi. He was formerly director of communications at Millsaps College and was the founding editor of Millsaps Magazine. He has served on the national council of the Margaret Walker Center for the Study of the African-American Experience at Jackson State University and was on the poet laureate selection committee for the state of Mississippi, office of the governor.
The Humanities Department at ̨ʹٷվ’ Utica Campus received a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund a project called “The Black Man’s Burden: William H. Holtzclaw and the Mississippi HBCU Connection” to explore the legacy of William H. Holtzclaw. The project’s goal is to contribute to a growing body of research and interest in the “Little Tuskegees” as important forerunners of the Civil Rights Era in the Deep South.
The grant allows for a two-year research program designed to equip faculty and student-scholars to explore themes in Holtzclaw’s writing in humanities courses, a Summer Teachers’ Institute and teaching resource kits.
The project’s Holtzclaw Lecture Series has also brought nationally recognized scholars and experts on African American education in the South for public lectures in a variety of venues around the state in cooperation with the Mississippi Humanities Council.
For more information about the grant project, contact co-directors on the Utica Campus, Dan Fuller at 601.885.7097 or daniel.fuller@hindscc.edu or Jean Greene 601.885.7034 or JBGreene@hindscc.edu).
̨ʹٷվ THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.
̨ʹٷվ Community College is celebrating its 100th year of Community Inspired Service in 2017. ̨ʹٷվ opened in September 1917 first as an agricultural high school and admitted college students for the first time in 1922, with the first class graduating in 1927. In 1982 ̨ʹٷվ Junior College and Utica Junior College merged, creating the ̨ʹٷվ Community College District. Today, as Mississippi’s largest community college, ̨ʹٷվ Community College is a comprehensive institution with six locations. ̨ʹٷվ offers quality, affordable educational opportunities with academic programs of study leading to seamless university transfer and career and technical programs teaching job-ready skills. To learn more, visit or call 1.800.̨ʹٷվCC.