The Department of History will play host to its final conference of the academic year, discussing the issues of race, gender and the history of the south next week.

The conference, titled When Innocence Constitutes the Crime: Race, Memory and Identity in the South, will bring together scholars versed in the topics of slavery and Jim Crow Laws. The conference will place special emphasis on the case of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old, African-American boy who was murdered in 1955. The case is often considered a pivotal event motivating the Civil Rights Movement.

Micah Khater, a sophomore in history and French, is coordinating the conference.

Khater said she first became interested in the subject of race relations in the south when she took a sophomore seminar class in Southern history with Katherine Mellon Charron, an associate professor of history.

“Every time we read a new article or book in class, I kept finding that what we learned in high school is quite oversimplified,” Khater said. “It sugarcoated a lot of the identities we had as a region in the United States.”

Khater organized two workshops led by faculty members at the University, which together, comprise the conference. On Monday, Blair L.M. Kelly, an assistant professor of history, will lead a discussion titled The Shadow of Death: Race, Crime, and the Execution of Corrine Sikes, which will cover the execution of an African-American woman in Pennsylvania and parallel nature to many convictions of blacks in the south.

James E. Coleman, a professor of law at Duke University, will give a public lecture on Tuesday emphasizing legal systems prior to the Civil Rights Movement, when courts were comprised of all-white juries.

“We’re delighted to have Coleman who is a very prominent public figure who wrote a lot of opinions during the Duke lacrosse case and how race played a factor in the trial,” Khater said.

Wednesday’s workshop will feature Charron, who will lead a discussion about the role of motherhood and gender in the South and its relationship with the NAACP.

On Wednesday night, Titmus Theatre will host the play “Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till,” by Mike Wiley Productions. Wiley is a playwright who stars in many of his works, many of which are one-man plays.

“The diversity in his acting, how he is able portray so many different roles is incredible in itself,” Khater said.

Khater said each work in the company’s repertoire was designed to inspire audiences to examine America’s racial history, teach the lessons of the past and encourage the application of these truths to the present.

“This play marries scholarship with public outreach and public history, and that’s what I really wanted this conference to be,” Khater said. “This is not just another academic conference where we sit down and talk about these papers. It is about reaching different demographics across campus, and people see how interdisciplinary society really is.”

Partnering with the Department of History, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the University Honors Program, Khater was able to secure funds to put the conference together.

Khater said her goal for the conference is to promote the importance of race relations in our society and to bring the topic to the forefront of discussion.

“I’ve often heard this mantra that racism is dead since we’ve elected a black president,” Khater said. “Race is still a huge factor in our politics, in our legal system, everywhere you look, especially in North Carolina” 

Charron, who served as Khater’s faculty mentor, praised her for her efforts.

“I have been teaching since 2005 and never have I seen such an effort from an undergraduate like I’ve seen from Micah,” Charron said. “I think it is very rare for an undergraduate to take this kind of initiative.” 

For Khater, this conference is just one small step toward a greater understanding not just of racism or academia, but the growth of society as a whole.

“Let’s begin a conversation, because if we don’t know where we come from, how do we know where we are going?” said Khater.