The President's Initiative on Race to Visit Oxford, Mississippi

On March 16th, members of the advisory board for the President's Initiative
on Race will visit Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta, and
then participate in a public forum on race relations on the campus of the
University of Mississippi in Fulton Chapel from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.  

Panelists from ten constituency groups will take part in a structured
dialogue with the advisory board members from 7:30 to 8:30. The second hour
will be devoted to an open- mike session for the entire community. The 
constituency groups are the arts, business, community organizations,
education, environment, government, health care, housing, labor, and 
religion.  Two panelists will be selected by the dialogue groups to 
represent each constituency except for the government group.  Members of 
that group will be invited to participate in the open-mike session and 
listen to the observations of their own constituency groups.  In place of 
government panelists, two representatives from the university community will
be selected.

The theme for the forum is "Race and Community in North Mississippi," with
a particular focus on Lafayette County-Oxford-University of Mississippi 
(LOU).  

Members of these dialogue groups have been meeting since the beginning of
February, in an attempt to involve a wider cross-section of LOU, to hone 
the discussions of race in our community and to select representatives for 
the public forum.  It is hoped that the advisory board will then 
participate in a conversation our community is already conducting on race 
relations.

On Tuesday, March 17th, the advisory board members will tour Oxford 
Elementary School.  It is that school that piqued the interest of the 
advisory board and President Clinton.  Governor William Winter showed 
President Clinton a photograph of his grandson's classroom, a class in 
Oxford Elementary.  The photograph shows an integrated classroom and 
President Clinton responded by saying, "This is what every classroom in 
America should look like."  Advisory board members will have a chance to 
tour that classroom, after a breakfast with faculty and studednts from the 
university.

At 11:00 a.m. in Fulton Chapel, Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater 
and Dr. John Hope Franklin, chair of the advisory board, will give a public
address.  

We have named our project "welcome table," a nod to the notion of Southern
hospitality.  But on a more important level, we take our name from a civil 
rights protest song, "I'm Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table," a song which 
looked forward to a day of equality for all American citizens in one of 
equality's most basic metaphors, the joy of sharing a meal with friends, 
whatever their differences. 

We invite you to sit at the welcome table,  to attend the public forum and 
the public address on March 16-17, to become involved in improving our 
community far beyond the March event.  It is incumbent on all of us to work 
together.