Henri Giles, Civil Rights Conference Chair and Instructor of the Department of Mass Media and Strategic Communication. (Pacer Photo / Jerrianna Somerville)
“When you say the word history, for a lot of younger people the yawns will start; but we have found these folks who have taken an interest in history and made it interesting to appeal to people who are in the age group of our students.” – Henri Giles, Department of Mass Media & Strategic Communication
A UT Martin faculty member, Henri Giles, is marking her debut as the new chair of the university’s Civil Rights Conference Committee, bringing in famous names from across the country to the small town of Martin, Tennessee.
Giles, who also is a UT Martin graduate, had an impressive string of accomplishments working as a freelance field producer for Oprah Winfrey for several years as well as co-writing a book with the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a contemporary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and an eyewitness to many significant events in history. Most noteworthy, Giles won an Emmy in 2015 for best documentary with her film, “Reflect, Reclaim, Rejoice: Preserving the Gift of Black Sacred Music.”
Giles began teaching at UT Martin that same year in the Department of Mass Media and Strategic Communication (formerly the Department of Communications) and is currently pursuing her doctoral degree at the University of Memphis.
Giles recalled, “I think my first year here I started attending meetings that the Civil Rights Conference Committee started having.” After two of the three committee members left last year, Giles was unexpectedly asked to take on the role of chairperson, to which she said yes. Since then, she has steadily built the committee back up, adding six new members and booking renowned and celebrated black speakers throughout the whole month of February.
In choosing those speakers, Giles said, “We have all worked really hard in trying to think about topics that students would enjoy because this is a conference that is on a college campus, so we want to bring in people that students will be excited about.” Some of the speakers include Tamika Mallory, social justice leader; Kahlil Greene, also known as the ‘Gen-Z historian’; and Jemele Hill, an Emmy-award-winning sports journalist. “We have people from all facets of life. One of the speakers is Anthony Ray Hinton, and his story will bring tears to your eyes,” said Giles. “I mean, can you imagine being arrested for a crime that you know you didn’t commit?”
A great benefit of students attending, according to Giles, is “enlightenment.” She stated, “I think for a lot of people, they don’t get a chance to really sort of keep up with what’s going on in terms of issues that may impact black communities.” Looking forward, her aim is to give students “a new and fresh way of looking at history.” Giles hopes to see a major paradigm shift in terms of civil rights issues; she declared, “Civil rights isn’t something that happened in the past or something that your grandparents experienced. Civil rights is something that’s happening right now.”
Giles readily thanked the university for their support with the Civil Rights Conference, especially noting the school administration’s commitment to growing the conference “from a day to a week to now the whole month of February.” She added, “No other university in this country is doing that.”
Though humbly withholding all the glory, Giles gave massive credit to the other individuals on the committee who have worked just as hard to make the event successful.
“We are tucked away in northwest Tennessee. You have to be intentional about finding us. We are not right off the interstate or anything, but we are bringing world-class people to Martin, TN, and I think that is so important to our students and it’s important for the community,” said Giles, who added that she is excited to make a change. She highly encourages students to attend, listen, and learn in this exciting opportunity for UT Martin.
