Creating an Electronic “Freedom Trail” of Civil Rights Sites

Dave Tell, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, has received the Scholars on Site Award from the Hall Center for the Humanities at the university. Dr. Tell will use funding from the award to develop a smartphone app called “Whose Emmett Till.”

Emmett_TillEmmett Till was a teenager from Chicago who spent the summer of 1955 with relatives in Mississippi. He was brutally murdered and his death became a lightening rod for the civil rights movement. A trial with an all-White jury acquitted two White men of Till’s murder. The men later boasted in an interview with Look magazine that they had committed the murder.

Several roadside markers showing the location of key events in the Till case have been stolen or vandalized. So Dr. Tell will develop a mobile app that will relate the story of Till’s murder. Dr. Tell will work with Patrick Weems, the director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi, the town where the trial was held.

Using a GPS system, users of the mobile app will be told the story of Till’s murder from several different perspectives as they travel around Sumner and the surrounding area.

Dr. Tell believes that eventually technology will be able to provide an “electronic Freedom Trail” of civil rights sites throughout the South.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

U.S. Department of Energy Recruits Xavier University of Louisiana to Participate in Clean Energy Research

“This partnership means a lot for Xavier as our students will have opportunities to perform research at our partner institutions in energy storage and contribute to the goal of net-zero carbon emissions, becoming future leaders of this field,” said Dr. Lamartine Meda, professor of chemistry and material science at Xavier University of Louisiana.

New Faculty Appointments for Four Black Scholars

The new faculty appointments are Marcelitte Failla at North Carolina State University, Travis Alvarez at LaGuardia Community College in New York City, Shawna Friday-Stroud at Florida A&M University, and Heather Lavender at Syracuse University in New York.

Simmons College of Kentucky Launches Two Early Childhood Education Programs

During the Great Depression, Simmons College of Kentucky was forced to downsize its degree offerings, one of which was the teacher education program. Nearly a century later, the HBCU has been approved to offer two degrees in early childhood education.

National League of Nursing Honors Sharon Irving for Outstanding Clinical Practice Leadership

Sharon Irving, professor of pediatric nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, has conducted extensive research on clinical care delivery, particularly nutrition care delivery for critically ill infants and children.
spot_img

Featured Jobs