The Fannie Lou Hamer Institute @ COFO
Pays tribute to Nelson Mandela through Art and Scholarship
The Fannie Lou Hamer Institute @ COFO and Gallery 1 partners to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela through art and scholarship on beginning on Monday, February 13, 2017 –1017 John R. Lynch Street, Jackson, MS, 39203;
JSU Reading Faculty Book Talk: In this session of the 2016-2017 academic year, The JSU Faculty Book Talk will discuss the book, Student Resistance to Apartheid at the University of Fort Hare: Freedom Now, a Degree Tomorrow (Lexington Books, 2016) featuring Dr. Rico D. Chapman, Associate Professor and Interim Chair in the Department of History and Philosophy and the Director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute @ COFO: Human and Civil Rights Interdisciplinary Education Center at Jackson State University.
Student Resistance to Apartheid at the University of Fort Hare: Freedom Now, a Degree Tomorrow explores forms of popular student resistance to apartheid education in South Africa, particularly at the University of Fort Hare (UFH), by tracing student activism at UFH from 1970 to 2000; highlighting the factors that influenced the development of a culture of student resistance; investigating the root causes that made Fort Hare exceptional in its stand against apartheid; and chronicling the educational and social implications that resulted from students’ unparalleled and fearless actions against the apartheid system. Student resistance at Fort Hare can be traced as far back as the 1940s; however, this book will primarily focus on the critical 1970–2000 period, which was marked by increased student activism in South Africa. The 1980s and 1990s were peak years for student activism in the country. There is no doubt that student struggles during this period and thereafter helped dismantle apartheid and usher in a new South African government. Dr. Chapman was an exchange student at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa in the late 1990s, where Mandela was also a student in 1939. He states that “students at JSU will be fascinated by the history of the freedom struggle in South Africa as it has many commonalities to the civil rights movement in the United States.”
In addition, there will be an exhibition unveiling of photographs titled “Nelson Mandela: His Life in the Struggle.” The exhibit chronicles the life and times of Nelson Mandela and were purchased by Dr. Chapman from the Robben Island Museum in Cape Town, South Africa.
6:00 pm – Exhibtion – Gallery 1, 1100 John R. Lynch Street, Suite 4, Jackson, MS 39203
For more information, visit: www.jsums.edu/HamerInstitute or contact us at 601-979-1563 or 601-979-4348 or email:COFO.Center@jsums.edu
