Assistant Professor of Sociology Jennifer Irons gave a presentation titled "Memory, Race, and Place: A Sociological Analysis of the Re-visitation of Civil Rights Era Violence" at the Eastern Sociological Society meetings in Boston during the last week of February. Irons shared early analysis of a new research project that examines how the collective memory of civil rights-era murders has been used by black and white members of one Mississippi community to construct meaning about their community, their racial identities and current race relations in the town, state and nation. Data for this project was collected in interviews with members of the Philadelphia Coalition, a multi-racial group established in 2004 to plan the 40th anniversary commemoration of the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Additional coalition goals are to establish a permanent memorial to the civil rights workers of Neshoba Country and to improve race relations there. Analysis was also based on observation of the 40th anniversary commemoration.
