[NEW CLASS] In the summer of 1965, Stuart J. Mitchell III joined the West Tennessee Voters Project organized by Prof. Douglas F. Dowd of the economics department at Cornell University. He was part of a coalition of students who traveled to West Tennessee to encourage African Americans to exercise their right to vote for the first time. For three years beginning in 1964, the Cornell project supported the grassroots civil rights protests that had been working since 1959 to register sharecroppers and other Black residents to vote. This effort led to the eviction of hundreds of sharecroppers and families. “Tent City” housed dozens of families for more than two years. This course will examine the impact of a series of legal and political changes that have effectively gutted key enforcement provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The most recent Supreme Court decision significantly narrowed protections long used to defend majority-minority congressional districts. Tennessee legislators immediately re-drew congressional boundaries and dismantled the state’s only majority-Black congressional district. The battlefield has transitioned from the county courthouse to redistricting maps, from voter registration forms to congressional boundaries. We will reflect on the question: will African American communities become disenfranchised again and lose whatever influence and power they accomplished from the decades-long struggle to secure the right to vote? Stuart will share his 1965 civil rights experience and its impact on his career and his life.  Audio/Visual, Discussion, Lecture