Jessica Brooks graduated from Brown in 1993. She attended Tougaloo in 1991 through the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership during the fall semester of her junior year. Brooks was hired as a researcher for the Brown-Tougaloo partnership 30th anniversary celebration. in the summer of 1993. She worked with Janet Cooper Nelson, Brown University’s chaplain and the Chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee on the Brown-Tougaloo Exchange. Brooks’s responsibilities included research, conducting interviews of Brown-Tougaloo Partnership participants, gathering artifacts and historical materials from Brown-Tougaloo participants, and organizing efforts for the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership 30th anniversary celebration in 1994. Brooks, along with Brown and Tougaloo faculty, interviewed people involved in the partnership over the years and asked program participants to share historical records in an effort to create an archives of the partnership. Brooks also acted as dramaturge for Brown’s Rites and Reason Theatre performance based on the history of Partnership. Brooks has served on the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership Advisory Council since 2018.
Tougaloo College, a historically Black college in Mississippi, and Brown University, a predominantly white institution, announced their partnership in 1964. The partnership was one of many developed nationally at that time as a result of an increased interest in Black education among progressive government leaders and educators during the civil rights and Freedom Now movements. Unlike many of the other intercollegiate relationships of that time, Brown and Tougaloo have been consistent in collaboration save for a period in the early 1970s where tensions between the mostly white community of Brown University and the mostly Black community of Tougaloo College were high. The Brown-Tougaloo Partnership, as it is called today, has been known by different names over time, including the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership, Brown-Tougaloo Exchange, the Tougaloo-Brown Exchange, Brown-Tougaloo Cooperative Exchange, and Brown-Tougaloo Relationship.
Brown University's initial programs and interactions with Tougaloo were paternalistic and extractive, borne of the white-saviourism of progressives of the time. While Tougaloo was allowed to send students and faculty to Brown with the intention to improve their education, Brown University sent professors and students to teach, tutor and examine Black students. One example of this was the Brown-Tougaloo Language Project, started in 1965, which replaced Tougaloo College's English course with a program of reading, writing and diction while using the students as the test subjects for Brown professor's linguistics studies. Brown administrators also worked to control power structures at Tougaloo, including the firing of Tougaloo's president in 1965 and the process of hiring his replacement.
The programs undertaken during the partnership have varied in content over time. Most have involved the exchange of students and faculty between the two institutions, and there have also been shared events such as concerts and seminars.
The 30th anniversary celebration took place at Tougaloo in October of 1994. Festivities included the Rites and Reason Theatre performance, music, banquets, seminars, and a convocation.
Reports entitled "Tougaloo impressions" and "Tougaloo-Brown Impressions" includes some manuscript notes.
Report was submitted to the Brown Corporation Committee on Relations with Tougaloo College.
Includes paper "Rites and Reason: A Theatre That Lets The People Speak" by George Houston Bass and Rhett S. Jones written ca. 1987.
Includes analog correspondence and printed emails.
Copies of essays by Clarke Hill, Erick A. Falconer, Eddye Bullock, and Patreece L. Sanders.
Includes reports, Tougaloo brochure, speeches, Brown-Tougaloo relationship agreement, typed copies of Tougaloo Acts of Incorporation, 1915.
Brown professor emeritus. Copy of journal kept during his semester at Tougaloo College, spring 1970.
Letters, including account of dinner with Eudora Welty. Includes note from Bernstein to Brooks, ca. 1993
Report as pre-freshman tutor at Tougaloo (redacted), 1966, Pre-Freshman Teachers-Tutors Manual,1966, and printed emails with Jessica Brooks, 1990
Copies of notebook, journal and correspondence. Copied ca. 1993.
Copies of letters, fliers, Tougaloo newsletter, and notes. Copies made in 1993.
Access to the original microcassettes is restrcted due to the Library's policy on access to original media.
Bernstein was Brown '73, exchange student at Tougaloo College.
Byrd was Tougaloo '73, and an exchange student at Brown University.
Tougaloo faculty member interview.
Widow of David Fernald, '44, donor of Memorial Fund for Brown-Tougaloo relationship.
Brown '85.5, exchange student at Tougaloo.
Includes copies of memoranda, correspondence and reports regarding the Brown-Tougaloo relationship.
Materials in this collection contain documentation of Anti-Black, Anti-Asian, and Anti-Latine racism and the use of ethnic slurs.
Jessica Brooks collected and created this collection as part of her work as a researcher for the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership 30th anniversary. The papers contain Brooks’s administrative documents including reports, memoranda and correspondence. In addition, as part of her work, Brooks conducted interviews and surveys of faculty, students and administrators. The papers contain interview notes, essays and filled-out survey forms, copies of administrative records from Brown University and Tougaloo College and personal papers of students and faculty from both institutions. In 1993, Brooks and the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership published an advertismentment requesting interviews and Partnership-related materials for assesment and reflection and to create an archives of the history Partnership. Materials in Series 3-6 of this collection contain the materials generated and recieved as part of this effort.
The papers are divided into five series:
Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. Researchers should note that compliance with copyright law is their responsibility. Researchers must determine the owners of the literary rights and obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Jessica Brooks papers on the Brown Univeristy-Tougaloo College Partnership, AMS-1ZUT-1, Brown University Library.
Series 1, Brown-Tougaloo Partnership 30th anniversary celebration administrative records and research, 1966-1994
Series 2, Jessica Brooks correspondence with Brown-Tougaloo Partnership participants, 1993-1994
Series 3, Student surveys and essays, 1993-1994
Series 4, Notes on interviews with Brown-Tougaloo Partnership participants, 1964-1994
Series 5, RESTRICTED: Microcassettes, 1993-1994
Series 6, Materials received from participants in Brown-Tougaloo Partnership, 1964-1993
There are no restrictions on access for analog materials. The collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested. Advance notice is required to view any audiovisual media that may exist in this collection. Audiovisual media in this collection have not been reformatted yet. Researchers may request access to copies by contacting the John Hay Library with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. Access to original physical audiovisual media is restricted.
Donated by Jessica Brooks.