Events

“The Emma Spencer Gooch Collection – Mississippi Voter Registration Education League goes on view September 18-19 at the Bozarts Gallery. The main event will be held on Saturday the 19th featuring the Gooch Family, representatives of the activists, various guest speakers and possibly voter registration.

The exhibit is drawn from the Gooch collection that opened in August 2024 at the University of Mississippi’s Archives and Special Collections in the J.D. Williams Library.  The collection contains a wealth of information about the fight for black voting rights in Yalobusha County: membership lists, Yalobusha County voter registration cards for the Mississippi Democratic Party, minutes of the meetings held at black churches throughout the county, correspondence related to African American voter registration in the 1960s and the creation of the racially integrated Mississippi Democratic Party in the 1970s including a letter from Aaron Henry, who was the chairman of the party.

All of these items are available because Mrs. Gooch preserved them and passed them down to her namesake to keep.” (North Mississippi Herald)