Support the Clyde Kennard Lecture

The Center for Black Studies is launching the Clyde Kennard Lecture, an annual event honoring Clyde Kennard, the first African American to attempt enrollment at segregated Mississippi Southern College in the 1950s (this institution, later becoming The University of Southern Mississippi, was integrated in 1965). 

In honor of its namesake, the lecture commemorates Clyde Kennard’s experience as an unsung civil rights activist, who sparked progressive changes in the movement for racial integration of higher education throughout Mississippi and the nation at-large.

We ask that you / your organization contribute to the cost of organizing the Clyde Kennard lecture. All funds will be used to cover expenses related to this event.

The minimum contribution is $19.55, which acknowledges the year 1955 when Kennard made his first enrollment attempt as a historic event that had a rippling effect leading to changes on campus and within the local community in the waning days of segregation. We ask that all other donations include 55 in the funding amount. (For example: $19.55, $55.00, $100.55, $255.00, $555.55, $1, 955.00, etc.)

In sponsoring the Clyde Kennard Lecture, you / your organization join others in honoring his unfulfilled mission of obtaining a quality education and in promoting his inspiring belief that “the end product of an education is a greater and more useful participation in the art of living in a civilized society.” Clyde Kennard’s contribution to the life of this university is immeasurable considering the diversity of students, faculty, and staff at The University Southern Mississippi today as reflective also of the local community.