A senior elementary education major at Tougaloo College from Laurel, Mississippi, Dasia Newell spent the summer participating in a Leadership Alliance research fellowship at Tougaloo. Working with Mr. Tony Bounds, Tougaloo’s institutional historian and adjunct History instructor, she explored the ways Mississippi’s history is preserved and understood through museums, archives, music, photographs, and other forms of cultural memory. What began as a research experience ultimately became something more personal: an opportunity to better understand the place she comes from, the institution she attends, and the responsibility she will one day have to help young students understand their own histories.

Seeing history differently

Newell has long been interested in music and is a member of the Tougaloo Concert Choir. Her summer research allowed her to bring that interest into conversation with her growing curiosity about Mississippi history. She visited institutions including the Smith Robertson Museum, Mississippi Museum of Art, B.B. King Museum, Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, and Museum of Mississippi History, as well as attending the Jubilee of Folks Opera at Jackson State University.

At the B.B. King Museum, for example, seeing photographs, awards, and memorabilia gave Newell a deeper understanding of the musician’s impact than she had gained simply from knowing his name. Elsewhere, encounters with Native American and African American history expanded her understanding of Mississippi and the many stories that have shaped the state. The experience also changed what she did beyond the formal research experience. After the fellowship, Newell continued seeking out opportunities to learn about Mississippi history on her own, including attending an Emmett Till birthday celebration and visiting the grave of civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer.

The more she learned, the more she wanted to know.

An exchange of knowledge

Much of Newell’s experience was shaped by her relationship with Bounds, whose work centers on Tougaloo’s archives and the preservation of the College’s institutional history. For Bounds, mentoring Newell was itself a learning experience.

“It was an opportunity to hear a burgeoning or a fresh academic mind,” he said, emphasizing that mentorship is not simply about transferring knowledge from one person to another. Rather, he sees learning as an exchange–one in which mentors must continually gauge how students are understanding, questioning, and applying what they encounter.

He was particularly impressed by Newell’s openness and willingness to explore different sources and disciplines, from archival materials and photographs to portraiture and other primary and secondary sources. “She’s very affable,” Bounds said. “She’s very genuine.”

Their connection was also unexpectedly personal. Both are from Mississippi communities near one another and discovered that they shared familiarity with some of the same places and people.  “It was like we had known each other basically all our lives,” Bounds recalled. “We knew all the same places, we knew some of the same people, and it was great. It really was.” That familiarity became another bridge between the academic work and the lived experience of history.

Learning history to know who you are

For Newell, one of the most lasting lessons of the summer was the connection between history and identity. Knowing where you come from, she came to understand, shapes how you understand yourself and the world around you. Her experience made her more intentional about learning Mississippi’s history–and about sharing what she learns with others. That lesson will follow her into her own career. After graduating from Tougaloo, Newell plans to become a kindergarten teacher, where she hopes to create opportunities for children to learn, explore, and understand the world around them.

Bounds sees that responsibility as especially important for young people. “Visualization is so important to the young mind–the crafting of a child's perception of the world, and who they are in the world,” he said. He emphasized the power of young people seeing people, places, and experiences that reflect their own lives, noting that such moments can be “a life-changing experience.”

For Newell, the summer provided that kind of learning firsthand. Now, she hopes to carry it forward.