{"id":9909,"date":"2023-02-15T22:08:19","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T22:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mission-us.org\/?p=9909"},"modified":"2023-02-18T20:56:19","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T20:56:19","slug":"meet-the-people-behind-no-turning-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mission-us.org\/2023\/02\/15\/meet-the-people-behind-no-turning-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the People Behind No Turning Back<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This Black History Month, we would like to shine a spotlight on the incredible advisors, cast, and other team members who contributed their expertise, talent, and passion to the creation of No Turning Back. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new interactive experience immerses players in the 1960s civil rights movement through the story of Verna Baker, a fictional teenager from the Mississippi Delta who ultimately joins other young people in organizing for voting rights. The story, characters, gameplay interactions, and instructional design were crafted based on both the historical scholarship and personal stories and experiences of our advisors, many of whom were themselves young people working for change in Mississippi in the 1960s. We are extremely grateful to our lead advisors, who included: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Freddie Greene Biddle<\/strong> was raised in Greenwood, Mississippi, and her family were among the earliest supporters of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). She started canvassing to encourage people to register to vote when she was a senior in high school in 1962, and remained active with SNCC until she moved away for college in 1968. Learn more about her story on the SNCC Digital Gateway<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charles McLaurin<\/strong>, a Native Mississippian, served as a SNCC field secretary and began SNCC\u2019s voter registration campaign in Sunflower Counter in 1962, at the age of 21. He continued his work with SNCC until 1967. He also served as campaign manager for Fannie Lou Hamer when she ran for Congress with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and continued to collaborate with Hamer through the 1970s. Learn more about McLaurin on the SNCC Digital Gateway<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Emilye Crosby,<\/strong><\/a> PhD, studies and teaches African-American history and the modern Civil Rights Movement. She has been a member of SUNY Geneseo’s History Department since 1995 and was the coordinator of the Black Studies\/Africana program from fall 2002 through Spring 2018.  She has written A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi<\/em> (winner of the McLemore Prize and honorable mention for the Organization of American Historians’ Liberty Legacy Prize) and edited Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, a National Movement<\/em>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pamela Nicole Walker<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong>PhD, is an Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M-San Antonio.\u202fWalker received her PhD in African American and Women\u2019s history from Rutgers University. She is currently revising her manuscript \u2018Signed, Sealed, Delivered: How Black and White Women used the Box Project and the Postal System to Fight Hunger and Feed the Mississippi Freedom Movement,\u2019\u202fwhich examines motherhood, race, activism, benevolence and political consciousness in 1960s-era women\u2019s social movement networks. Walker has contributed articles all three volumes of the award-winning Scarlet and Black Project at Rutgers University. Her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the PEO Sisterhood and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.\u202fView her blog post <\/a>to read about Walker\u2019s personal connections to the history in \u201cNo Turning Back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional advisors included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n