Archives and Special Collections Exhibits
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Creation Date
9-7-2021
Description
Pulitzer Prize winning author, poet, civil rights activist, and humanitarian Alice Walker published her third collection of poetry, Good Night Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning, in 1979. A rare copy of the uncorrected proof of this seminal work is featured in this case. The selected poem “Light Baggage (for Zora, Nella, Jean,)” is dedicated to luminaries Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larson, and Jean Toomer, three authors who Walker describes as eventually leaving the “career of writing … [and] seeking writings very heart: life itself.
Other new additions to Special Collections include three curriculum guides focusing on African American history, authored for students and teachers, in the 1964 Mississippi freedom schools. Lee Porter Poston’s circa 1941 manuscript is also showcased. Poston authored this reminiscence while serving in the U.S. armed forces. In addition to his reflections upon life in the military, Poston wrote of his early family life sharecropping on a Mississippi plantation, as well as detailing his harrowing experiences witnessing mob violence. An original copy of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's second Freedom Primer, “The Freedom Vote and the Right to Vote,” is also on display.
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