The 2024 Chautauqua theme is Lift Every Voice: 60 Years Since the Civil Rights Act. The theme is designed to educate, enlighten, and entertain audiences of all ages, cultures, and socio-economic demographics. All events are free and open to the public.
Our historical figures include five influential figures from the Civil Rights era: Earl Warren, Rosa Parks, Lady Bird Johnson, Thurgood Marshall, and Coretta Scott King. For five days, through daily workshops and evening monologues, our audience will explore the life and times of each character. With extensive research in primary and secondary source documents, journals and diaries, scholars immerse themselves in their characters’ lives to develop a historically accurate portrayal and the knowledge to respond to audience questions.
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Our Events
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Workshop:
The Oklahoma Brown Case
11:00 am
Altus Public Library
421 N Hudson
Workshop:
Music of the Civil Rights Movement
2:00 pm
Museum of the Western Prairie
1100 N Hightower
Performance:
Dr. Doug A. Mishler as Earl Warren
7:00 pm
Western Oklahoma State College
Pioneer Heritage Center
2801 N Main
In the 1950’s a small town in Oklahoma, Bartlesville, is where Miss Ruth W. Brown, librarian was summarily dismissed after 30 years of service because she had circulated subversive materials. What materials did a library hold that would be considered subversive? The Brown case exemplifies the strange period of the Cold War known as the McCarthy era and racial integration in Oklahoma.
This workshop will delve into the music of the Civil Rights Movement drawing inspiration from African American spirituals, gospel hymns, blues, jazz, and folk songs music. The songs of the movement were a powerful source to uplift, strengthen, and spread messages of hope. Handouts to be circulated to workshop attendees.
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Workshop:
Rating the First Ladies
11:00 am
Altus Public Library
421 N Hudson
Workshop:
War and a Question of Civil Rights
2:00 pm
Museum of the Western Prairie
1100 N Hightower
Performance:
Vanessa Adams-Harris as Rosa Parks
7:00 pm
Western Oklahoma State College
Pioneer Heritage Center
2801 N Main
The role of First Lady comes with no job description, no pay, and no written requirements. Yet America’s presidential spouses have wielded great influence and have always been subject to intense public scrutiny. In this interactive illustrated lecture, historian Leslie Goddard, Ph.D., explores which First Ladies have ranked highest and lowest with historians. Who do you think was best or worst? Why were some so vilified? And what might the future hold for the role of American First Lady?
This workshop will delve into the music of the Civil Rights Movement drawing inspiration from African American spirituals, gospel hymns, blues, jazz, and folk songs music. The songs of the movement were a powerful source to uplift, strengthen, and spread messages of hope. Handouts to be circulated to workshop attendees.
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Workshop:
The Civil War Amendments
11:00 am
Altus Public Library
421 N Hudson
Workshop:
Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement
2:00 pm
Museum of the Western Prairie
1100 N Hightower
Performance:
Leslie Goddard as Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson
7:00 pm
Western Oklahoma State College
Pioneer Heritage Center
2801 N Main
The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution individually marked important milestones in American history and collectively served to satisfy the war aims of the Lincoln administration. However, as these new freedoms changed American society in so many varied and unanticipated ways and set the stage for a living constitution that could be molded to answer the expanding legal needs of a complex and rapidly growing society into the 20th and 21st centuries, the general citizenry remained unaware of the historic connections to slavery and a redefinition of our citizenship.
From the children here in Oklahoma with Clara Luper in Oklahoma City, a young Claudette Colvin who at 15 refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, to the Citizenship Education Program throughout the south and its rural communities. Just who, what and where?
Friday, May 31, 2024
Workshop:
Coretta Scott King and the "Freedom Concerts"
11:00 am
Altus Public Library
421 N Hudson
Workshop:
The Lady Bird Special
2:00 pm
Museum of the Western Prairie
1100 N Hightower
Performance:
Jim Armstead as Thurgood Marshall
7:00 pm
Western Oklahoma State College
Pioneer Heritage Center
2801 N Main
In October 1964, the Lady Bird Special train pulled away from Washington D.C. Over the next four days, the nineteen-car train carried First Lady Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson on a whistle-stop tour of eight Southern states to garner support for Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential campaign in the face of fierce opposition to his civil rights reforms. In this lecture, we’ll explore the story of the Lady Bird Special and how Lady Bird used the historic trip to appeal to the minds and hearts of her fellow Southerners while confronting the racism that still prevailed in the region, she called home.
Saturday, June 1, 2024
Workshop:
The Supreme Court's Role in American Life
11:00 am
Altus Public Library
421 N Hudson
Workshop:
Plessy vis a vis Brown
2:00 pm
Museum of the Western Prairie
1100 N Hightower
Performance:
Rebecca Jimmerson as Coretta Scott King
7:00 pm
Western Oklahoma State College
Pioneer Heritage Center
2801 N Main
We will cover not just the Warren Court but peruse a variety of Supreme Courts from the first of John Marshall up to the Robert’s Court today. We will explore how the Court has been called upon to decide cases that had an immense effect on American society and culture. From Judicial Review to Civil Rights, Slavery, Voting Rights, Abortion, free speech, rights of the accused; just about every topic in American life has one time or another (and sometimes many times) has been affected by the high Court’s decision. Hopefully this will foster a very relevant discussion about the Court’s role in America today and tomorrow.
The Supreme Court responded to the legal challenge against state sanctioned involuntary segregation in 1896 with an attempted social compromise using the tortured language of the separate but equal doctrine to support the status quo. This deliberate misinterpretation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment denied the specific intent of the law to satisfy the overwhelming desire of white supremacists in the southern states to retain the sanctioned Jim Crow system of racial separation in all public spaces. Brown attacked this interpretation of Constitutional law within the confines of public education by the novel use of sociological data demonstrating that in an egalitarian political system order to successfully deny access to a public service or resource, otherwise available, solely based on race served to permanently stigmatize the victim rendering a legal categorization of separate as inherently unequal and hence impermissible under our scheme of constitutional protections.
SCHOLARS & HISTORICAL FIGURES
Often called the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” Rosa Parks was an ordinary person who did extraordinary things. She encouraged other ordinary citizens to lift their voices and never anticipated receiving a national and global platform from which to speak, but the cause of freedom was of the utmost importance to her.
Appointed to the Supreme Court by President Eisenhower, Earl Warren had been a moderate Republican, who as governor of California took the lead in Japanese Internment during World War II. As Chief Justice, Warren would lead the court to strike down segregation with the Brown vs School Board, open voting rights in Baker vs Carr & Reynolds vs Sims and uphold criminal rights to counsel and protections in Miranda and Gideon vs Wainwright. He would also lead the court to protect privacy rights in Griswald vs Connecticut and strike down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving vs Virginia.