USM Center for the Study of the Gulf South Hosting Lecture Feb. 7 on Hattiesburg Campus

Dr. Sara Rzeszutek, an associate professor of history at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York and author of James and Esther Cooper Jackson: Love and Courage in the Black Freedom Movement, will deliver a talk entitled “Southern Black Labor Radicalism in the Postwar Years” Thursday, Feb. 7 at 6 p.m. in room 101 of the Liberal Arts Building on The University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg campus. Admission is free.

This event is sponsored by USM's Center for the Study of the Gulf South, and is a part of the University's Black History Month programming. Copies of Dr. Rzeszutek's book, James and Esther Cooper Jackson, will also be available for purchase.

Dr. Rzeszutek's presentation will explore southern black radicalism in the post-World War II years, with an emphasis on the Southern Negro Youth Congress's activities between 1946, when the organization reached a peak in its influence, and 1949, when it faced its demise in the midst of the emerging Cold War. She will also examine the organization's politics, internationalism, emphasis on women in leadership roles, and legacy.

Housed in the USM History Program, the Center for the Study of the Gulf South examines critical eras of the American South and Caribbean basin—the colonial Gulf South, slavery and abolition, the Civil War era, the Civil Rights Movement and other mobilizations for citizenship and equality. The Center is based in both Hattiesburg and at the Gulf Park Campus in Long Beach. For more information on the Center, including about its faculty and scholarly activities, visit https://www.usm.edu/gulf-south.