Communication Department unveils Civil Rights listening station
Contact: Elise Doster
11/10/09
Click on thumbnail for high resolution photo
Southeastern Communication Interim Department Head Suzette Bryan and communication professor Amber Narro help students Tiffany Baptiste and Megan Mosher navigate the “Narrating the Silences” listening station located on the second floor of Sims Memorial Library. The station features Civil Rights videos, pictures and articles, and was created by a special topics communication course taught by Narro. A University of Louisiana System Learn and Serve Grant funded the course and listening station. From left are Narro, Baptiste of New Orleans, Bryan and Mosher of Loranger.
HAMMOND – The Southeastern Louisiana University Department of Communication recently unveiled “Narrating the Silences,” a Civil Rights interactive listening station created by a communication special topics class.
Funded by a University of Louisiana System Learn and Serve Grant, the project features student-conducted interviews of Tangipahoa Civil Rights leaders, news articles and pictures collected during a semester-long course. The station is located on the second floor of the Sims Memorial Library.
The project was a collaborative effort between the Southeastern Department of Communication and the Tangipahoa chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The listening station was part of the course’s overall project titled “The Right to Remember,” which explored the impact of the Civil Rights Movement within southeast Louisiana.
“I originally thought ‘these are the people who have been involved and have compelling stories’ but that we just didn’t have anyone to collect their narratives,” said Interim Communication Department Head Suzette Bryan, who also wrote the grant. “I hoped the students would understand the sacrifices people have made for us to be where we are today.”
In addition to the listening station, the students also produced a blog, a magazine and a documentary featuring interviews with Tangipahoa NAACP President Patricia Morris and Civil Rights advocate Rev. Edward “Chipps” Taylor among others.
“This project took a local effort and combined it with what was really happening on a national scale,” Narro said. “This was really a historical project because we were able to find out how we fit in locally and learned that Civil Rights is an issue that affects everyone.”
Megan Mosher, a senior mass communication major from Loranger and one of the students who worked on “The Right to Remember,” said the project was an enlightening experience because she had never thought about Civil Rights as a local issue before enrolling in the course and participating in the project.
“When you think of the Civil Rights movement, you think of Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, Jr. but you never really think of it happening in your hometown,” she said.
For additional information contact the Department of Communication at 985-549-2105.
More News...
