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Paul Ortiz: Learning civic engagement in the heartland of America


As the director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, I have been taking University of Florida students to the Mississippi Delta every summer since 2008 to study the origins and legacies of the modern civil rights movement. Up until 2020 when the global pandemic put a temporary halt to our fieldwork students would pile into vans armed with digital audio and video recorders, interview guides and business-casual clothing appropriate for mid-July in the sweltering Delta heat.
After a 12-hour drive from Gainesville to one of several small towns located near the mighty Mississippi River, students would begin the process of getting acclimated to the region that historian James C. Cobb famously called “the most southern place on earth.” ....

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