On September 28, 2022, Sykina Butts, Maggie Crawford, and Rolando Herts screened the documentary “Voices from the Sit-in" as part of the History Is Lunch series.
Delta State College—now Delta State University—was an all-white institution until it was desegregated in the fall of 1967. By February 1969, fifty-two students formed the Black Student Organization and sent a list of demands to Delta State president James M. Ewing that included ending discrimination by white professors against Black students, grading the work of Black students fairly, offering opportunities for scholarships to Black students, and hiring Black counselors and instructors.
“When our demands had not been met by mid March, we students decided to peacefully protest by sitting in the corridor by the president’s office,” said Maggie Crawford. “When we refused to leave, school officials had us arrested and taken to Parchman Penitentiary.”
In 2019, Delta State students at the Digital Media Arts Center began interviewing sit-in participants with the goal of creating a documentary film. “We wanted to capture the voices of those who paved the way for other Black students at Delta State,” said Sykina Butts, associate producer of the film.
“Voices from the Delta State Sit-in” has aired on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and been screened in nearly a dozen film festivals, including the Fort Smith International Film Festival, where it won the best documentary short film award, and the Deep in the Heart Film Festival where it was nominated for best documentary short.
Sykina Butts is a multimedia journalist at Delta News in Cleveland, Mississippi. She earned her BA in English from Delta State University, where she was vice president of the Social Justice Club. Butts is a former McNair Research Scholar, Democracy In Action Fellow for Mississippi Votes, and Rosedale Freedom Project volunteer.
Maggie Crawford is a retired teacher and counselor and the owner of Crawford Real Estate in Cleveland. She earned her BS in education from Delta State University, where she was a member of the Black Student Organization and a leader in the 1969 sit-in, and her MS in student, personnel, and counselor education from Mississippi State University.
Rolando Herts is director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University and executive director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, a congressionally designated partnership with the National Park Service. He earned his BA in English from Morehouse College, his MA in social science from the University of Chicago, and his PhD in planning and public policy from Rutgers Graduate School—New Brunswick.
History Is Lunch is sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History explores different aspects of the state's past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building at 222 North Street in Jackson and livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook.
