Rekindling the Flame: Jackson State University students continue
historic fight for the vote in Mississippi
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Rhonda Sonnenberg, SPLC Senior Staff Writer | Read the full piece here
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Friend,
At the edge of Jackson State University, a mere 100 yards from the
closest school building, stands a sacred place in the annals of the
civil rights movement in Mississippi.
It was there that Dave Dennis
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, co-founder of the activist umbrella group Council of Federated
Organizations (COFO)
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, in 1963 established COFO's Mississippi headquarters.
And it was there that Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers
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, Fannie Lou Hamer
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and many other courageous leaders of the movement congregated to
strategize and plan how to attain civil rights for Black people. This
meant registering as many Black Mississippians to vote as possible
- in the face of poll taxes, literacy tests and violent
intimidation by white supremacists - at a time when just 7% of
eligible Black voters in the state were registered.
The headquarters at 1017 John R. Lynch St. - a street known as
the cradle of civil rights activity in Mississippi - became the
nerve center of the Mississippi movement.
Today, the building, with its original façade and now owned by
Jackson State, is known as the COFO Civil Rights Education Center
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, a meeting and training space for student activists with exhibits
that pay homage
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to the past.
It is here that a coalition of students is working to rekindle the
spirit of the movement and continue the march for justice by
registering, educating and mobilizing voters. To their adviser,
political science professor Byron D'Andra Orey
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, the former Lynch Street headquarters seemed like the perfect place
to resurrect student-led efforts.
"Living in a place like Mississippi, you have to become part of
the solution," said the Delta-born Orey, whose mother was a
social worker in Clarksdale and father a union worker.
The student group is among those at five colleges and universities
that recently received more than $80,000 in Vote Your Voice
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(VYV) grants under the Southern Poverty Law Center's new
College Pilot Program.
The Vote Your Voice initiative is a partnership between the SPLC and
the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta
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to increase voter registration, participation and civic engagement
among communities of color in the Deep South. The SPLC has pledged to
invest $100 million
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in Vote Your Voice grants through 2032. This year, a total of 44
grassroots voter outreach organizations across the Deep South have
received more than $4.6 million in funding as part of the 2022-2023
round of VYV grants.
While the challenges are much different than they were in 1963 -
when Jim Crow laws and customs enforced segregation and Klansmen
murdered civil rights activists - Orey and his students know
there is much work to do.
Today, Mississippi remains one of the five U.S. states with the most
restrictive voting laws
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and ranked near the bottom
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for voter participation in the 2020 presidential election.
Only 28% of Jackson State's students voted in the 2020 election,
and Orey vows to reverse the poor showing.
READ MORE
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.
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