Mississippi Valley State University is set to co-host a conference on cotton and sharecropping in the Delta next week that will include academic discussions and performances by well-known musicians.
The second annual Sweat Equity Investment in the Cotton Kingdom Symposium will be held at MVSU beginning Thursday.
There will be a scholarly exchange on all aspects of the cotton kingdom as well as a “Cotton Pickers Ball” with music by acclaimed R&B artists Otis Clay, Marshall Thompson and Syl Johnson.
The symposium is co-sponsored by Khafre, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a monument in honor of Mississippi Delta cotton pickers.
The presentations begin at 9 a.m. Thursday and will include academic discussions, poetry readings and dramatic re-enactments of all aspects of sharecropping and cotton production in the Delta.
“We must make sure our younger generation understands the relationship between the cotton economy and many of the social problems we face in the Delta today,” wrote Dr. Vincent Venturini, interim associate provost at Valley, in a press release.
On Oct. 18, the events will begin with a ceremony “to honor those folks that planted, chopped and picked cotton,” said Sade Turnipseed, Khafre’s executive director and one of the symposium’s organizers. “We’ll reflect on our ancestry and those folks that worked this land and take a moment to pay our respects to our heritage.”
Immediately afterward, a “Cotton Pickers Ball” will conclude the events.
Musicians Clay, Thompson and Johnson all have their roots in Mississippi but — like so many others who left the region in the 1960s — they built their careers in Chicago. That makes their performance at the symposium particularly significant, said Turnipseed: “They left in the 1960s going to Chicago on a train, and now they are re-emigrating back home on a train to participate in the event.”
Turnipseed said she hopes the symposium will lead to a broader understanding of the significance of cotton for American history and culture.
“A lot of people are angry at cotton. The work that was so hard and it was such a painful experience for so many people who when they were young lived in the Delta,” she said. “We hope to redefine cotton, to have folks think differently about their investment.”
Thursday’s events are free to the public. Tickets for the ball are $5 for students and $25 for everyone else. For more information on the symposium, contact Khafre, Inc. by email at info@khafreinc.org or by phone at (662) 347-8198.
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
