Schedule & Materials

Detailed Schedule (updated July 4, 2022)

Note: Except where noted in the schedule below, all institute meetings will take place in the Student Union 225 (starting July 5th). Except the night-time event on July 5th, which will move back to Burchfiel Geography Building's Room 101.

Week 1: July 3rd - 8th, 2022

Sunday, July 3rd

Monday, July 4th

  • 9:00 – 9:30 AM — Introduction to Institute (Alderman)

  • 9:45 – 11:00 AM — Introduction of Major Theme – Geographic Mobility (Alderman & Bottone) Read Cresswell, T. 2008

  • 11:15 – 12:00 PM — Discussion: Goals for End of Institute Curricular Unit Development (Kenna)

  • 12:00 – 1:00 PM — LUNCH

  • 1:15 – 2:15 PM — Lecture: Re-Teaching the Montgomery Bus Boycott (Alderman). Offer an alternative, mobility focused teaching of one of the most widely taught chapters of the Movement

  • 2:30 – 3:30 PM — Lecture: Introduction to Race and Racism in US (Inwood) Explain the centrality of race in America and its socially constructed nature in relation to inequality.

  • 3:30 – 4:30 PM — Discussion: Participants’ Reflected Essays and Personal Connections to Geographic Mobility as Empathy Building Exercise (Bottone)

  • 4:30 PM — Orientation Tour of Knoxville and the University of Tennessee Campus (Butefish)

Tuesday, July 5th

  • 7:30 - 8:45 AM — NEH participants in need of parking permits should visit UT Parking Services (they open at 7:30am)

  • 9:00 – 10:15 AM — Lecture: Historical Racialized Geographic Mobility – Part 1 (Kelley) Explain the historical importance of movement in the Black American experience from slavery to the present day.

  • 10:30 – 12:00 PM — Digital Humanities Exercise: Introduction to ESRI Story Maps and Their Use in the Classroom (Camponovo) at BGB Room 405

  • 12:00 – 1:00 PM — LUNCH

  • 1:15 – 2:15 PM — Lecture: Historical Racialized Geographic Mobility – Part 2 (Kelley) Explain the historical importance of movement in the Black American experience from slavery to the present day.

  • 2:30 – 4:00 PM — Discussion of Readings: Kelly, Right to Ride

  • 7:00 – 8:00 PM — Special Evening Event: Introduction to Knoxville (Jack Neely, Executive Director, Knoxville History Project)

  • 8:00 – 9:00 PM — Special Evening Event – Presentation on the role of Mapping in Civil Rights Struggle and Student Non- Violent Coordinating Committee’s Education and Geographic Agenda (Inwood & Alderman) Explain the importance of geographic education and mapping to the Black Civil Rights Struggle.

Wednesday, July 6th

  • 9:00 – 9:45 AM — Lecture: Introduction to Black Geographies (Eaves) Introduce Black Geographies and major tenets and themes, including centrality of place and space and diaspora to the American Black experience.

  • 10:00 – 11:00 AM — Lecture: African American Spaces of Resistance (Inwood) Explain how Jim Crow segregation operated as geographic system and the role of places and counter public spaces as sites of Black resistance.

  • 11:15 – 12:15 PM — Lecture: Race/Gender/Mobility (Eaves) Explain the intersection of race, gender, sexual identity within mobility patterns and histories.

  • 12:00 – 1:15 PM — LUNCH

  • 1:30 – 2:30 PM — Lecture: The Great Migration (Inwood) Explain how the Great Black Migration out of the South was consequential in reshaping America.

  • 2:45 – 4:00 PM — Digital Humanities Exercise: Mapping Population Change During the Great Migration (Camponovo) at BGB Room 405

Thursday, July 7th

  • 9:00 – 10:00 AM — Lecture: African American Automobility (Bottone) Explain the role of automobile travel in Black life as a source of freedom and inequality.

  • 10:15 – 11:15 AM — Discussion (Bottone):

  • 11:30 – 12:00 PM — NEH Participant Discussion with LaQuanda Walters Cooper (NEH Program Officer) .

  • 12:00 – 1:00 PM — LUNCH

  • 1:15 – 4:30 PM — Field Trip: Beck Cultural Center and African American Archive and Museum

    • Explore the impact of urban renewal/removal on Knoxville’s Black neighborhoods, its social and geographic legacies, and ongoing efforts at the Beck Center to archive, preserve, and mobilize that history—which is part of a larger racial politics of mobility and displacement occurring across Tennessee and the US. We will hear from Rev. Renee Kesler (Executive Director of the Beck), Brianna Flanagan (Archivist of the Beck), and Robert Booker (former Beck Director, newspaper columnist, and local historian).

Friday, July 8th

  • 8:30 – 9:30 AM — NEH Project Leaders speak with LaQuanda Walters Cooper

  • 9:00 – 9:45 AM — Lecture: Antiracism Mobility Work & Movement as Activism (Alderman) Explain the bodily practices that underlie mobility as a form of racial resistance.

  • 10:00 – 11:00 AM — Discussion: End of Institute Curriculum Project Planning & Guidance (Kenna)

  • 11:15 – 12:00 PM — Model Classroom Activity: Navigating Racism Through the Green Book (Kenna)

  • 12:00 – 1:00 PM — LUNCH

  • 1:15 – 2:15 PM — Oral Histories as a Classroom Strategy (Finkelstein) Explain how to collect, archive, and analyze oral histories.

  • 2:15 – 3:00 PM — Application of Oral Histories to Studying Black Mobility (Alderman) Demonstrate the role of oral histories in analyzing stories of Black mobility.

  • 3:00 PM — Project Work Time

Week 2: July 11th - 15th, 2022

Monday, July 11th

Tuesday, July 12th

  • 8:00 AM — Field Trip: Urban Nashville Tour & Drive to Memphis (Padgett):

    • At Night: Write in Journal: Answer the following prompts, What you saw that you expected? What you saw that was unexpected? What did you learn related to theme of institute? What do you want to know more about? How can you use what you saw/learned in classroom?)

Wednesday, July 13th

Thursday, July 14th

Friday, July 15th

  • 9:30 – 10:45 AM — Post Field-Trip Assignment, Journal Reflections and Group De-Briefing (Kenna)

  • 11:00 – 12:00 PM — Discussion of Bay (2021) and NPR Code Switch Piece and Participants report on curriculum project idea and progress.

  • 1:15 PM — Project Work Time & Personal Time

Week 3: July 18th - 22nd, 2022


Monday, July 18th (Held at BEC 118)

  • 9:00 – 10:00 AM — Lecture: The Escape from Slavery as Resistance (Harlow) Explore the role of escape as resistant mobility within the slave experience.

  • 10:00 – 11:00 AM — Model Classroom Activity: Interstate Highway (Kenna)

  • 11:00 – 12:00 PM — Discussion of “Where to Go?” (Alderman) and Demonstration of Freedom on Move Database (Finkelstein)

  • 12:00 – 1:00 PM — LUNCH

  • 1:15 – 2:15 PM — Lecture: Mobility & Free African Americans During Slavery (Harlow) Explain the role of mobility among free people of color and free Black communities during slavery.

  • 2:30 – 4:00 PM — Guided Discussion: Strategies for Teaching Sensitive Subjects Like Slavery and Racism (Everyone leads)

Tuesday, July 19th (Held at BEC 118)

  • 9:00 – 9:45 AM — The Black Living Atlas: The Role of Counter-Mapping in Anti-Racism (Alderman)

  • 10:00 – 10:45 AM— Mapping Green Book Locations to Explore Changing Urban Geographies (Bottone)

  • 11:00 – 11:45 AM — Documentary: The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (Bottone) Explore how histories of movement of capital and investment impact African American communities.

  • 12:00 – 1:00 PM — LUNCH

  • 1:30 – 2:00 PM — Zoom Discussion with NEH Program Officer, LaQuanda Walters Cooper

  • 2:15 PM — Project Work Time (open digital lab time with Camponovo, 405 BGB)

Wednesday, July 20th (Held at BEC 118)

  • 9:00 – 10:00 AM — Lecture: Black Travel in the Present Day (Benjamin) Explain the struggles that continue to shape Black travel today.

  • 10:15 – 11:00 AM — Discussion of #BlackTravelMatters in Bay (2021) (Bottone)

  • 11:00 – 12:00 PM — Lecture: Race, Social Media & Mobility Studies (Benjamin) Explain the emerging relationship between race, travel and social media as a platform of resistance.

  • 12:00 – 1:00 PM — LUNCH

  • 1:15 – 2:15 PM — Social Media as Indicator of Travel (Benjamin) Using social media as an indicator of travel attitudes.

  • 2:30 PM — Project Work Time (open digital lab time with Camponovo, 405 BGB)

Thursday, July 21st (Held at BEC 118)

  • 9:00 AM until Finish — Presentation of Projects in Professional Meeting Format (20 minute max). We will have a working lunch.

Friday, July 22nd (Held at Student Union, 225)

  • 10:00 – 11:45 AM — Institute Wrap-Up & Graduation Ceremony, Student Union Room 225

Pre-Institute Assignments

Upon selection to the institute, participants will be assigned two tasks:

  1. Prepare and submit by June 30, 2022 an essay of not more than 750 words concerning their understanding of geographic mobility and its relationship to African American history and civil rights

  2. Read assigned items from the reading list below.

Reading List

UPDATED on April 25, 2022

  • The purpose of these readings (see below) is to give participants a glimpse into some of the major themes and writers in historical and contemporary Black geographic mobility. These readings represent just the tip of the iceberg as one says. A greater array of readings and information are available in this Google drive folder, which serves as a “living clearinghouse of resources.” Materials will be continuously added to this clearinghouse before, during, and after the NEH institute. These resources are bonus materials for those interested. The required readings are found below.

  • This institute’s approach to readings is to assign participants articles, podcasts, chapters and excerpts from books, and whole books (in just a couple of cases). The expectation is that participants will read or listen to the assigned material by the date indicated below and institute organizers have created spaces in the schedule for group discussion. A major effort was made to provide readings in electronic format (pdf) to minimize participant costs.

  • Please note that many of the resources (below and in the clearinghouse) deal with serious matters of racism and struggles against physical, emotional, and economic violence. Readers are encouraged to exercise self-care as they process the material.

Week 1 Reading/Listening (July 4-8, 2022)

All material available electronically (participants suggested to complete much of this reading before arrival, especially Right to Ride)

  1. Cresswell, T., 2008. Understanding mobility holistically: The case of Hurricane Katrina. In The ethics of mobilities: Rethinking place, exclusion, freedom and environment, pp.129-140, Routledge. [read by 7/4/2022]

  2. Kelley, B.M., 2010. Right to ride: Streetcar boycotts and African American citizenship in the era of Plessy v. Ferguson. University of North Carolina Press. Dr. Kelley is helping facilitate the NEH institute and she has asked that participants read chapters 1-3 and 5-6. [read by 7/5/2022]

  3. Sorin, G., 2020. African-Americans and the Automobile. In Driving while black: African American travel and the road to civil rights, pp. 150-175, Liveright Publishing. [read by 7/7/2022]

  4. Wilkerson, I., 2010. The warmth of other suns: The epic story of America's Great Migration, Vintage. Only selected pages required and posted—pp. 193-196, 199-204, 205-213, 215-216. [read by 7/7/2022]

  5. The Green Book. 99% Invisible Podcast (Episode 201). https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-green-book/ [listen by 7/7/2022]


Week 2 Reading/Listening (July 11-15, 2022)

All material available electronically. Given that participants will be traveling this week, discussions focus on highways and buses.

  1. Swift, E., 2011. The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Only selected pages required and posted—pp. 227-238, 264-270, 275-281, 293-300, 309-311. [read by 7/11/2022]

  2. Addressing the Racial Inequities of the Interstate Highway System. WBUR On Point, June 22, 2021. https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2021/06/22/addressing-the-racial-inequities-of-the-interstate-highway-system [listen by 7/11/2022]

  3. Minnesota Paradox: How Highway Development Linked to Larger Racial Disparities. The Indicator from Planet Money (NPR), June 8, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872639451/the-minnesota-paradox [listen by 7/11/2022]

  4. Bay, M., 2021. Traveling for Freedom: The Desegregation of American Transportation. In Traveling Black, pp. 268-305. Harvard University Press. Includes important discussion of Freedom Rides and the important role played by Nashville Student Movement. [read by 7/15/2022]

  1. The Reverse Freedom Rides (Radio Story), Code Switch (NPR), December 11, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/12/10/786790638/the-reverse-freedom-rides [listen by 7/15/2022]


Week 3 Reading (July 18-22)

All materials available electronically

  1. Franklin, J.H. and Schweninger, L. 2000. Where to go? In Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the plantation, pp. 97-129. New York: Oxford University Press. [read by 7/18/2022]

  2. Bay, M., 2021. #BlackTravelMatters. In Traveling Black, pp. 306-320. Harvard University Press. Includes important discussion of Black geographic mobility challenges in the present. [read by 7/20/2022]

Institute Assignments

One of the goals of the institute is for the participants to create curricular materials, including at least three (3) lesson plans or class projects that incorporate national standards for geography and/or social studies. Participants will be encouraged to blend technological tools and web-related materials into these products. The object of the curricular unit development projects will be to produce a series of lesson plans and class projects that act as building blocks toward an understanding of geographic mobility.

At the end of the institute, their plans/projects will be presented to invited East Tennessee teachers in a professional conference format on Thursday, July 21st. Participants should implement the lessons during the early part of the next school year (i.e. Fall 2022). Participants should record and return to the institute directors their students’ reactions to and evaluations of these projects, and to provide recommendations for revising and improving the projects. An editorial/evaluation team will give final approval of these lessons and projects.


The edited series of lessons and activities will be distributed through the Tennessee Geographic Alliance (TGA) website. The TGA is a non-profit education organization based in Knoxville, Tennessee. For more than 30 years, it has served geography and social studies teachers across the state. The lessons and activities will also be made available to other organizations, such as the National Council for Geographic Education, for distribution to teachers. Participants will be encouraged to design their lesson plans and subsequent presentations so they can be presented to other teachers within their school systems as part of regular in-service training programs.