eLabs Events
Dear Mr. Meredith: Transcribing and Analyzing the Correspondence Received by James Meredith During His Integration of the University of Mississippi
October 17 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time
James Meredith first applied for admission to the University of Mississippi in January of 1961. At that time, the University had never admitted a Black student despite the 1954 United States Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, which established racial segregation in public schools as unconstitutional. Meredith’s application was initially denied, but, with legal assistance from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund, the United States Court of Appeals ruled that Meredith should be admitted. That decision was again confirmed by the United States Supreme Court on September 10, 1962, following an appeal brought forward by the state of Mississippi.
The long and arduous process of Meredith’s admission into the University of Mississippi captured the world’s attention. As news traveled, James Meredith received hundreds of letters from all over the world. Many of these letters are housed in the University of Mississippi’s Archives and Special Collections and are digitally accessible online, but a new project based at the University of Mississippi aims to make these materials more discoverable.
As their first step, the project digitally organized the collection by coding each letter as “sympathetic” or “unsympathetic.” The team then mapped the various locations and sentiments of the 1000+ individuals who wrote to Meredith, creating a geospatial snapshot of the public’s attitudes toward segregation during a turbulent period in American history. Now, the team aims to transcribe the letters with help from their local community.
On October 17 at 1:00 PM EDT, join project leaders Adam Clemons and Abbie Norris-Davidson as they discuss their methodology in mapping Meredith’s correspondence and their plans for future work on this project.
Dear Mr. Meredith: Transcribing and Analyzing the Correspondence Received by James Meredith During His Integration of the University of Mississippi
About the Presenters
Adam Clemons is an Assistant Professor of Scholar Support and Data Services specializing in Digital Humanities. In this role, he collaborates with the Scholar Support and Data Services team, other library departments, campus partners, faculty, students, and staff to promote, create, and support the use of digital scholarship tools and methodologies in interdisciplinary scholarly research. He also serves as the library’s subject specialists for many academic units on campus including History, African American Studies, and International Studies. His research interests include geospatial humanities, citation analysis, data literacy, and the business of professional wrestling. He earned his graduate degrees in Library Science and African Studies from Indiana University. Before moving to Mississippi, he served as the Librarian for African and African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Abbie Norris-Davidson is the Digital Initiatives Librarian and Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi. Her primary role is overseeing eGrove, the University of Mississippi’s institutional repository, which collects, preserves, and disseminates the intellectual and creative output of the University. Abbie earned her MSIS from The University of Texas at Austin, where she focused on archival science and digital humanities. Her research interests include born-digital archival preservation, geospatial humanities, and Automatic Speech Recognition applications in archives. In addition to Dear Mr. Meredith, Abbie is the creator of Mapping Memphis, a geospatial analysis of historical funeral home data (www.mapping-memphis.com).
