ATMOS Energy Donates to Fannie Lou Hamer Digital Arts Program

August 30, 2020 – JACKSON, MS

A filmmaker’s workshop for high school students in the Mississippi Delta has received a $1,000 donation from ATMOS Energy. The Sunflower County Film Academy, which is part of the K-12 curriculum for the multimodal project, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, teaches students the aesthetics of filmmaking while using professional-grade equipment. The purpose of the free workshop is to encourage more minorities to engage in Digital Arts as a career option.

Students from the SCFA 2018 class unpack production equipment at Gentry High School in Indianola, MS.

With corporate headquarters in Dallas, Texas, ATMOS Energy serves 255,000 customers in Mississippi, and has long supported educational programs within the state.

“It’s an honor to be able to support the Sunflower County Film Academy,” said Bobby Morgan, Atmos Energy Vice President of Public Affairs. “This is an exciting program that will motivate the next generation of men and women in the digital media field.”

The Academy partnered with Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center (ETIC) in Sumner, MS for the 2020 program. The workshop had planned to host students from Tallahatchie County and was slated to be held in June at ETIC. The workshop was postponed, however, due to statewide COVID-19 restrictions. But plans are being made for the 2021 program to be held at the same facility. Weems said the Academy mirrors their mission of helping teens to “process past pain” through the arts while “imagining new futures moving forward.” ETIC offers several programs for local youths throughout the year.

 A STEM program, the Sunflower County Film Academy recruits up to 15 high school students annually to participate in the summer program based on their interest in Digital Arts. They learn to investigate and document their own family history while becoming acquainted with the Delta’s most influential citizens, such as Fannie Lou Hamer. Workshop instructors are filmmakers Dr. Pablo Correa, of West Hartford, Connecticut and Sunflower County native, Robert “RJ” Fitzpatrick. Besides their own independent productions, Fitzpatrick and Correa were also videographers for the original documentary, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, currently negotiating a 2021 public television broadcast. Correa is also the web designer and a curriculum developer for Find Your Voice: The Online Resource for Fannie Lou Hamer Studies, the film’s educational website.

Dr. Davis Houck, one of the curriculum designers, and the Fannie Lou Hamer Professor of Rhetorical Studies at Florida State University, will be on hand to assist students during the classroom setting. Three former students from the first filmmaker’s workshop will serve as interns where they will be trained to teach future workshops.

Those students were part of the 2018 class held at Gentry High School in Indianola, MS. That program was funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The final class film, Find Your Voice, premiered at the 2019 Crossroads Film Festival in Madison, MS. And several of the students were videographers for the film, I Snuck Off the Slave Ship, which was an official selection at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Funding for the 2020-2021 workshop was also provided by the Phil Hardin Foundation, Mississippi Humanities Council, MDNHA, C Spire Foundation and HOPE Enterprises and Credit Union.

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Two Historic Universities Host First Screenings of New Documentary, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America