Abstract

The humanities have come to play an important role in the future conservation strategy of the Strawberry Plains Audubon Center. Sisters Ruth Finley and Margaret Finley Shackleford, who shared a common passion for birds and wildlife, bequeathed this historic 2500-acre former cotton plantation to the Audubon Society in 1982. Audubon Mississippi took possession of the property in 1998 and established the Strawberry Plains Audubon Center the following year.

Through well-focused and clearly thought-out programs, the Audubon Center continues to grow as an education and conservation resource serving Holly Springs, north Mississippi and the southeast’s diverse ethnic and socioeconomic communities. The Audubon Mississippi newsletter, published by the Mississippi State Office of the National Audubon Society, started just 3 years ago, dramatically improves with each new issue. This newsletter reports, for example, on the growing September Hummingbird Migration Celebration and the Amateur Naturalist Camp at Strawberry Plains, the Great Backyard Bird Count, and honors the efforts and activities of Audubon Chapter volunteers throughout Mississippi.

The Strawberry Plains Audubon Center discovered early in its growth process the rich past of this former working farm. In 2002 a planning grant, matched by the Audubon Center, was awarded by the Mississippi Humanities Council to help connect the cultural heritage of the property and the mission of the Audubon Center. This grant received a special 30th Anniversary Award designation from the Mississippi Humanities Council celebrating 30 years of public humanities programming in Mississippi. The grant provided for the visit and study of the Audubon property by three scholars from the disciplines of archaeology, vernacular or folk architecture, and oral history. Each scholar enlightened the Audubon Center staff, illuminating its rich heritage and many program possibilities. Through this grant the Audubon staff became acutely aware of its great potential to incorporate the humanities as a way of forming a bridge to the community, and in effect allow the community and conservation to converge.

The humanities disciplines, as defined by Congress, include languages and literature, history, archaeology, jurisprudence, philosophy, ethics, comparative religion, history and criticism of the arts, and social sciences employing historic and philosophic approaches.¹

This novel approach has led to two additional MHC grants to begin projects in archaeology and oral history. These grants, matched by the Audubon Center, have resulted in bringing humanities scholars and graduate students from the University of Mississippi, the University of South Carolina and Hampton University together to meet with local citizens and community leaders at the Strawberry Plains Audubon Center.

The immediate goals of the Audubon Center include conservation and restoration of the natural ecosystem and building relationships between peoples and nature, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats, for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biologic diversity. The Strawberry Plains Audubon Center is now ready to undertake a new effort; the restoration of up to three of its long-abandoned former tenant or sharecropper’s homes to serve as educational areas for the Center. Of nearly a dozen former tenant homes on the property there are several that can be saved and restored to their original condition for educational reuse. These homes can be utilized to tell the story of a time when people lived in close association with the land and how this relationship impacted plant and animal populations. One has only to stand inside a tenant home to feel the strength and courage of those who lived there and begin to understand the odyssey from slavery to freedom and restoration. Of critical significance will be to learn these relationships so that the Audubon Center can provide an accurate history of this historic property to guests at its visitor’s center and for participants in educational programs.

Following restoration with the help of the local community, uses of the tenant homes may include:

• Playing recordings for visitors of the oral histories of the descendants of individuals who once lived there to enable reflection on our cultural heritage
• Conducting workshops for children and adults on native plants and their use in everyday life; or on restoration projects ongoing at the Center
• Provide settings for photography workshops and gallery shows
• Provide settings for teaching reading and creative writing through nature and history
• Providing gallery space for young local southern artists to paint and display wildlife art
• Provide space for blues and local roots music programs to connect individual imagination to shared experience
• Conduct seasonal writing, drawing, painting and sculpture workshops
• Display artifacts found from archaeologic studies to provide insights about the past from early Native Americans to present-day culture
• Demonstrate historic culinary and food preparation skills and techniques

The Strawberry Plains Audubon Center is located in Holly Springs, Mississippi, near Rust College, just 1 hour by automobile from Memphis, and 45 minutes from the campus of the University of Mississippi.

Literature Cited

1.  Grant Applications Forms and Guidelines 2000–2001. 2001. Mississippi Humanities Council, Jackson, MS. P.3.