The Library Unbound: Milne Library News

Alden Scholar Series Fall 2023 Lecture by Dr. E. Howard Ashford

Please join us on Thursday October 26th at 4:00 pm for the Fall 2023 Alden Scholar Series Lecture by Dr. E. Howard Ashford from SUNY Oneonta’s History Department. At this event Dr. Ashford will discuss his book published in 2022, titled “Mississippi Zion: The Struggle for Liberation in Attala County, 1860–1915.” The event will be hybrid, accessible through this Teams link, the QR code on the above poster, or in-person in the Alden Room (Milne 300).

Accompanying the lecture, Dr. Ashford and Peg Engasser, Library Special Collections Intern, have created an exhibition which explores Dr. Ashford’s scholarship and themes within the book. Peg Engasser describes the exhibition as exploring the development of colleges, specifically through the comparison of the Oneonta Normal School and many Black Mississippi colleges. The exhibition includes two glass cases both located on the third floor of the Milne Library, one located inside the Alden Room, and one just outside of the elevator in front of the Alden Room.

There will be copies of “Mississippi Zion: The Struggle for Liberation in Attala County, 1860–1915” for sale at the event for $28 each. Credit card, cash, check, and Dragon Dollars will all be accepted methods of payment for book purchases. After the lecture there will be a reception with light refreshments held in Milne 318.

The Alden Scholar Series is an opportunity to celebrate SUNY Oneonta faculty members who have published books or book-length projects in the past five years. The Alden Scholar Series is eligible for LEAD Credit, and is held every semester. Stay tuned for announcements on our next Alden Scholar Series lecture.

Dr. Ashford and the Alden Scholar Series Coordinating Committee look forward to seeing you either in-person or online on Thursday October 26th at 4pm!

Mississippi Zion by Evan Howard Ashford

Call Number: F347.A7 A84 2022

ISBN: 1496839722

Publication Date: 2022-07-27

From lesser-known state figures to the ancestors of Oprah Winfrey, Morgan Freeman, and James Meredith, Mississippi Zion: The Struggle for Liberation in Attala County, 1865-1915 brings the voices and experiences of everyday people to the forefront and reveals a history dictated by people rather than eras. Author Evan Howard Ashford, a native of the county, examines how African Americans in Attala County, after the Civil War, shaped economic, social, and political politics as a nonmajority racial group. At the same time, Ashford provides a broader view of Black life occurring throughout the state during the same period. By examining southern African American life mainly through Reconstruction and the civil rights movement, historians have long mischaracterized African Americans in Mississippi by linking their empowerment and progression solely to periods of federal assistance. This book shatters that model and reframes the postslavery era as a Liberation Era to examine how African Americans pursued land, labor, education, politics, community building, and progressive race relations to position themselves as societal equals. Ashford salvages Attala County from this historical misconception to give Mississippi a new history. He examines African Americans as autonomous citizens whose liberation agenda paralleled and intersected the vicious redemption agenda, and he shows the struggle between Black and white citizens for societal control. Mississippi Zion provides a fresh examination into the impact of Black politics on creating the anti-Black apparatuses that grounded the state's infamous Jim Crow society. The use of photographs provides an accurate aesthetic of rural African Americans and their connection to the historical moment. This in-depth perspective captures the spectrum of African American experiences that contradict and nuance how historians write, analyze, and interpret southern African American life in the postslavery era.