THE DAILY
MISSISSIPPIAN
Monday, April 13, 2015
Volume 103, No. 116
T H E S T U D E N T N E W S PA P E R O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I S S I S S I P P I S E R V I N G O L E M I S S A N D OX F O R D S I N C E 1 9 1 1
news
Crime blotter: April 3 - April 9 Page 3
lifestyles
Visit theDMonline.com
@thedm_news
sports
African Drum and Dance spring concert Tuesday Page 4
Diamond Rebels claim series over No. 1 Vanderbilt 2-1 Page 6
Blue team triumphs in Grove Bowl RebelTHON raises money for Batson LANA FERGUSON
lnfergus@go.olemiss.edu
PHOTO BY: MARLEE CRAWFORD
Quarterback Ryan Buchanan prepares to throw the ball during the Grove Bowl Saturday. See page 8 for full story.
Students were on their feet for a total of 12 hours Saturday to benefit Blair E. Batson Children’s Miracle Network Hospital in Jackson. The event was an on-yourfeet, no-resting event. Participants stood to support children, like the ones at Batson, who don’t have the ability to stand for themselves. This dance marathon portion of RebelTHON is the final event celebrating the money raised throughout the year. This year, RebelTHON will be donating $40,010.87 to Batson Hospital, the only children’s hospital in Mississippi. “RebelTHON made me realize how the Ole Miss community could come together on a Saturday night doing something bigger than themselves in order to benefit others,” said Rebecca Skidmore, sophomore marketing and corporate relations major. Each hour throughout the
night had a theme related to favorite times of the year, from Halloween to Independence Day to football season. There were music, games and special guests throughout the night. Special guests included the spirit squad, live bands and Athletics Director Ross Bjork. The real stars of the night, however, were the past and present Batson patients that shared their stories. At the start of each hour, everyone at RebelTHON did a choreographed dance called the morale dance then a patient and their family would share their story as the audience took one knee out of respect. “There were times when my friends and I wanted to leave, but we all pushed through and stayed all 12 hours,” said Prianna Patel, freshman nursing major. “Being able to see some kids there telling their stories every hour definitely encouraged us to stay as well.” A total of five Batson kids and their families were in at-
SEE REBELTHON PAGE 3
Students participate in weekend archeological dig ANNA MCCOLLUM
aemccoll@go.olemiss.edu
HOLLY SPRINGS - The anthropology and sociology departments participated in an anthropological dig Sunday as part of Holly Springs’ annual “Behind the Big House Tour.” As part of the town’s spring pilgrimage, “Behind the Big House: Preserving the Histories and Architecture of Slavery” tells the history of its slaves’ quarters. With approximately 20 of these structures still intact, Holly Springs has one of the largest inventories of these buildings in the South. Three of the quarters were on display last week at Hugh Craft House, Burton Place and Magnolias. Visitors were able to tour each of these structures, which were chosen because of their variety and proximity to one another. In addition, professors and students from the department of sociology and anthropology conducted an archeological dig around the Hugh Craft House’s slave quar-
ters, which was built in the 1840s. Carolyn Freiwald, assistant professor of anthropology, helped lead the dig. “The houses are hidden in plain sight, but we’re trying to go a little bit beyond that and to see what things people left behind that we might not otherwise know about,” Freiwald said. Freiwald’s curiosity was shared by the home’s owner, Chelius Carter, who started the “Behind the Big House Tour” along with his wife, Jennifer Eggleston, after they purchased the Hugh Craft House in 2008. “‘Behind the Big House’ is one of our more unique preservation initiatives because it is basically the preservation of a culture that was an intricate part of making up Southern culture,” said Carter, president of Preserve Marshall County and Holly Springs. “Basically, it is offering up an opportunity for a former antebellum, plantation community that celebrates these big palatial mansions to tell a more fuller, complete, ac-
PHOTO BY: ZOE MCDONALD
Martha Grace Mize and Kyara Williams excavate the basement of the Hughs house’s slave quarters in Holly Springs. curate story that by those tokens is strations, during which tourists more inclusive.” learned what foods were eaten in This was also the mission of the 1850s as well as how the slaves both Joseph McGill, founder of would have prepared them. the Slave Dwellings Project, and The archeological dig also exMichael Twitty, a culinary histori- plored the foodways of the nine an who studies African-American slaves who worked at the Hugh Craft House. foodways. “Specifically, we’re looking for In a presentation Saturday at the Ida B. Wells Museum, McGill any animals’ bones or any potsupplied in-depth information tery to give us an idea of what it on the structures included in the was like — how they used to eat tour, as well as what life would and cook,” said Kyara Williams, have been like living in them. Wit- a junior archeology major from ty contributed cooking demon- Killeen, Texas.
For Williams and several other students, the dig for “Behind the Big House” was their first handson experience with archeology, according to Freiwald. Searching in the cellar and along an exterior wall of the structure where a porch once was, Freiwald and her students found old nails and other construction debris: charcoal, animal bone, ceramic pieces and a spot they believed to be the location of an old post. These discoveries, along with other uncovered histories by the “Behind the Big House” project, all work together to supplement a narrative that has long been incomplete, according to Carter. “We’re looking to offer up an option to retool that historical narrative and give this enslaved population a voice and a history in which they are silent, and in many ways, they are silent still,” Carter said. “When you do a tour of antebellum homes, and you mention nothing about the people that made that grand lifestyle possible, you’re editing history.”