Join us for our next #UndertheLight as we explore how Jim Crow propaganda influenced the disenfranchisement of African Americans through artifacts displayed in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and a lecture featuring special guest Phoenix Savage of Tougaloo College. The program will be held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Two Mississippi Museums under COVID-19 safety precautions and will also stream live from the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Facebook page.
African Americans experienced multiple forms of violence, discrimination, and exclusion because of laws and social customs that promoted and upheld white supremacy. Collectively, the laws and customs were called Jim Crow, after a minstrel character, and they gave rise to Black stereotypes in the form of caricatures and other representations in pop culture and the media that left a negative impact on African Americans in the South.
Phoenix Savage, a Fulbright scholar, is an associate professor of art and leads the Visual Art and Social Practice program in the Mass Communications Department at Tougaloo College. She also teaches sculpting courses at Brown University. As a research-based artist, sculptor, and designer, Savage’s work has been showcased in numerous art exhibitions across the country. She has published cultural writings in several scholarly collections and is the author of two books of illustrated histories on African Americans in the South. Savage has received prestigious recognitions for her work and was named the 2019 Mississippi Humanities Council Teacher of the Year. She is a member of several art associations including the Black Artists + Designers Guild, the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance, and Artaxis.