USF Professors Participate in Center for PAInT’s Museum Studies Initiative

July 27, 2022 – Sarasota

The University of South Florida Center for Partnerships for Arts Integrated Teaching (PAInT) and Arts Schools Network (ASN) are convening USF researchers, teachers, teaching artists and administrators for a Civil Rights Museum Studies initiative, July 25–29, 2022, hosted by Experience Montgomery, a division of the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce in Montgomery, Ala. The museum studies initiative is being funded with part of an $8.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education for the Center for PAInT’s Race, Equity, Arts and Cultural History, or REACH, project. 

REACH is the vision of Denise Davis-Cotton, director of USF’s Center for PAInT and a distinguished alumna of Alabama State University. The civil rights museum and research studies will provide rigorous, intellectual resources, leading to a more equitable distribution of highly inclusive learning communities that contribute to educators’ development of shared vocabulary and ways of knowing about the racial, cultural, and equity histories that will underpin the culturally-inclusive arts integration content and practices of REACH. 

“Maya Angelou wrote, ‘History despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again,’” Davis-Cotton said. “The REACH Montgomery Museum Studies engage some of of our nation’s top educators in an arts-learning experience that focuses on opportunity, legacy, authenticity and history. The enduring outcome will manifest in designing culturally inclusive, arts-integrated curricula that enhance students’ historical understandings of race, dignity and equality through civic engagement.” 

USF researchers attending the Museum Studies event include Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, Fenda Akiwumi, Ruthmae Sears, Dana Thompson Dorsey, Sandra Stone, Kyaien Conner, Deidra Cobb-Roberts and Brenda Walker, who will conduct focus group sessions 

Twenty-one educators from six legacy museums across the country will travel to Montgomery for the three-day Civil Rights Museum Studies event to collect information and data about the overt and hidden histories related to the experiences of African Americans. Museums that will be represented are the Civil Rights Memorial Center at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Museum, National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Rosa Parks Museum and the Mothers of Gynecology and the Freedom Rides Museum.  

The opening keynote address, “From Vision to Victory,” will be delivered by Professor Gloria Browne-Marshall, a professor of constitutional law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York, and civil rights attorney, author, and nationally syndicated columnist and legal commentator. She has litigated cases for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Community Legal Services in Philadelphia. Browne-Marshall was the recipient of the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Justice Award for her work with social justice, civil rights, and efforts to support women’s equality. She was also the recipient of the Wiley College Women of Excellence in Law Award. 

Browne-Marshall is also a Pulitzer grant recipient and received the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Justice Award, Wiley College Women of Excellence in Law award and the Association of Black Women Attorney’s Community Service Award. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild, Mystery Writers of America, National Association of Black Journalists, PEN American Center, Society of Professional Journalists, the American Bar Association, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., National Bar Association and the National Press Club. 

Other presenters at the REACH museum studies event include Vanzetta Penn McPherson, U.S. magistrate judge (Ret); Quinton Ross, president, Alabama State University; Tafeni English, the Southern Poverty Law Center; Wanda Battle, Legendary Tours; Michelle Summers, Michelle Speaks; Michelle Browder, the Mothers and of Gynecology.  

Also speaking will be Charlotte Morris, president of Tuskegee University; and Mayor Stephen Reed, Montgomery’s first Black mayor.