Mississippi Learning
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This summer, nine Duke Divinity School students have traveled to Mississippi – the site of some of the nation’s worst racial segregation, despair and violence – for a 10-week field education experience. The goal of their stay: to participate in the work of racial reconciliation growing in churches and communities across the state.
The project developed from numerous connections among Duke Divinity School and clergy in or from Mississippi already working toward reconciliation. For example, the divinity school’s co-directors of field education, Connie and Joey Shelton, recently worked in that state (Joey as pastor of Court Street UMC in Hattiesburg and Connie as executive director and preacher of “The United Methodist Hour” television program in Hattiesburg).
Each week, one student involved in the project will write in this space about his or her experiences through the program. They will describe the people, places, successes and failures they encounter throughout this journey.
Organizers hope the students will learn lessons that could be taught only by their presence in this place, surrounded by those who faithfully pursue racial reconciliation and those who have suffered from racial division. They also expect the students will contribute a fresh perspective along with openness, energy and creativity to groups working in reconciling ministry.
“Many of our students were born in the early ’80s, hundreds of miles from talk of the civil rights struggle and issues of race,” said Connie Shelton. “Going to Mississippi will afford them an up-close-and-personal experience, which will hopefully lead to conversations about justice, hope and healing.”
Learn more about this program in the spring 2005 issue of Divinity magazine.