Jackson Free Press

Several events this weekend are planned to honor people who participated in the Civil Rights Movement and to remember the struggle for racial equality in Mississippi.

The Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement is hosting a conference this week, with events continuing today through Sunday.

Charles Ogletree, founding director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, is the keynote speaker at tonight's Mississippi HBCU presidential banquet at Jackson State University. For more information, call 601-918-7809.

Also this evening, the Margaret Walker Center at JSU will unveil its newest archival acquisition, the Frankye Adams-Johnson Black Panther Party Collection. Adams-Johnson, a professor at JSU, helped organize a student walk-out in 1963, when she was 17 and a student in Jackson Public Schools. She was later an active member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in New York City.

The center will host a reception for people to see an exhibit about the collection today from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Ayer Hall on the JSU campus. For more information, call the Margaret Walker Center at 601-979-2055.

JSU's Council of Federated Organizations will also host a grand opening for its Civil Rights Education Center. This afternoon, area students will participate in a "freedom march reenactment" with some members of the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. For more information, visit jsums.edu/cofo or call 601-979-4348.