Dickinson College

It’s one thing to voice opinions to family and friends. But to speak as an unofficial ambassador for one’s country is another matter, entirely. This is just one lesson that Flosha Tejada ’11 learned while conducting group research in South Africa—and she says that the experience taught her much not only about South African culture and history, but about what it means to be an American, as well.

“[In South Africa] I was … the representation of American culture and values,” Tejada recalls. “At times, I had to watch the things I would say or do because I knew all of my actions would be used to define America as a whole.”

Tejada is one of eight Dickinson students who are gaining valuable intercultural insights by participating in the Comparative Black Liberation Mosaic, a program that uses cross-cultural and transnational fieldwork, classroom study and multimedia production to examine and compare the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and the African-American civil-rights movement.

On the ferry boat to Robben Island (from left): Max Paschall ’11, Kyle Coston ’09, Flosha Tejada ’11, James Chapnick ’10, and Atandi Anyona ’10.

A “welcoming and giving” experience

Led by Assistant Professor of History Jeremy Ball, Professor of History Kim Lacy Rogers and Assistant Professor of Music Amy Wlodarski, the semesterlong program requires students to travel to King William’s Town, South Africa, a seat of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1950s-’90s, and Coahoma County, Mississippi, home of several important leaders of the civil-rights movement of the 1950s-’80s.

During their stays, the students conduct oral history and archival research, paying special attention to the economic and political legacies of each social movement. They also immerse themselves in the local culture by living with host families, and by working collaboratively with community leaders and high-school students.

“It was a welcoming and giving experience,” says Rogers of the recent South African trip, adding that the group was “very warmly received.”

The students will return that favor at the end of the semester by producing a Web site and other multimedia projects that will share what they have learned with the communities they have visited and with the world.

This collaborative aspect, says Ball, is vital to the program. “Even though it’s a short trip, it’s richer and deeper than a typical study-abroad experience,” Ball explains. “They’re not going abroad as tourists. There’s a research agenda, and they’re actually engaging with a culture. And, they are giving something back to the communities.”

How it began: Interdisciplinarity in action

The seeds of the program were planted in 2006 when Ball, who had formerly lived in South Africa, and Rogers, who had conducted extensive research in Mississippi, collaborated with Wlodarski to explore the role of music in the civil-rights and anti-apartheid movements.

After delivering a lecture on the topic—and at the encouragement of Community Studies Center Director Susan Rose and Special Assistant to the President for Institutional and Diversity Initiatives Joyce Bylander—the professors created an course that explored four major aspects of each of these important contemporary social movements: black consciousness and civil rights philosophies; the ways in which music reflects and shapes cultural values; life histories; and the ways in which these movements are memorialized. Students must not only gain deep understanding of both of these movements in modern history, but also must compare and contrast them.

“We talk a lot about [interdisciplinarity] at the college, and this program really embodies it,” says Ball.

The Mosaic group in front of the home of slain anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, with his widow, Ntsiki Biko (2nd row, in white). Photo courtesy of Jeremy Ball.

The program began with a summer orientation, followed by a monthlong trip to South Africa, where participants interviewed residents in collaboration with representatives from the Steve Biko Foundation and students from the University of Fort Hare, the oldest historically black university in South Africa.

Ball, who describes the trip as “chock-a-block with interviews,” says that it was “a profound experience … students were able to conduct about 30 interviews, and they were sometimes very surprised by what they learned.”

This was certainly true for Ryan Koons '10, who says that the extreme poverty he witnessed in South Africa was "overwhelming."

"The biggest challenge was to maintain one's personal sanity and outlook in the face of extreme poverty and desperation," he explains. "We interviewed and interacted with people afflicted with a type of poverty that does not exist in the United States. I have never felt so helpless as I did then, surrounded by people with desperate need, and completely unable to give them those necessities they required most."

Rogers says that the students' culture shock yielded valuable lessons. “What’s important is that this gets us all out of our comfort zones and out of our normal realms," she says, adding that the slower pace of life in South Africa was another source of initial discomfort for the students. "This is when true insight arrives.”

In November, the group will travel to the Mississippi Delta, where they again will interview residents, activists and the families of activists, with the aid of students from the historically black Coahoma Community College. During this trip, the students will have an opportunity to interview people who can remember the days before the civil-rights movement.

Rogers anticipates that it will be a highly meaningful and instructive experience.

“We will be interviewing some people who live in two- or three-room houses with a washroom in the backyard. Most of our students are suburban or urban so this very rural environment is very new to them,” she says, noting that one of the rural Mississippi communities the group will visit has only a few hundred residents.

“Most students don’t get to do this kind of fieldwork until graduate school," Rogers adds. "It’s a little bit of opportunity from which people can grow in spectacular ways.”

Flosha Tejada ’11, James Chapnick ’10, the group's tour guide, Atandi Anyona ’10, Amy Wlodarski, Kyle Coston ’09, Kim Rogers, Tiffany Mane ’10, Max Paschall ’11, Ryan Koons ’10 and Corinthia Jacobs ’11.

In between these travels, the students attend classes in South African history, the history of the civil-rights movement, oral history and ethnomusicology. They will also analyze the data they’ve collected and create multimedia projects—such as a Web site, films, podcasts and audio streams—that will present what they have learned.

Tejada—who was in the midst of helping to transcribe the students’ more than 30 South African interviews at the time that this article was written—says that the multimedia projects are coming along well and that students are kept very busy during the program, which counts as a full semester of credits. Despite the workload, she says she is enjoying the experience.

According to Ball, the rewards for this hard work can last a lifetime. “I think that the students can feel confident as historians,” he says. “They’ve collected oral history. They’ve worked in archives. They’ve set up a web site. They’ve done the work,” he says. “I hope it will also be humbling, and that they will gain a new appreciation for the struggles of the past.”

"I would highly recommend this program to everyone," asserts Koons, who hopes to study ethnomusicology in graduate school, and finds the musical aspect of the coursework particularly interesting. "You learn so much, not only about South Africa and ... America, but also about yourself as a person."