The Feb. 22-25, Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration was an exemplary model of a public humanities program that was envisioned in the establishment of the National Endowment for the Humanities and its state affiliates.

The scholarly lectures and presentations open to the public free of charge created an independently functional framework.

However, the ticketed events, including a musical presentation, a dramatic performance, two workshops and several social activities, enhanced and expanded the substantive content of the conference.

These events affirmed the value of interdisciplinary breadth so apparent in the planning and implementation of the conference, hosted by Copiah-Lincoln Community College and supported by the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Mississippi Arts Commission, the Natchez National Historic Park, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Mississippi Public Broadcasting and community and civic volunteers and students.

The conference obviously reflects the expertise and acumen of Project Director Carolyn Vance Smith and her Co-Lin colleagues. Exemplary planning, coordination and implementation came to fruition in every component of a series of diverse endeavors that reflected the topic, “Southern Accents: Language in the Deep South.”

The focal appeals in the diverse formats were the literal, artistic and imaginative interpretations of the word “accents” in relation to linguistic symbols that were defined relative to the diversity of both usage and users of the English language.

The scholarly understanding of the complexity of language at the base of all humanities disciplines affirmed the planners’ sound judgment in selecting scholars and presenters and types of usage contexts that exemplified, amplified and clarified the advocacies of the scholars.

Very effective technical uses of audio and visual media and the Natchez Convention Center as a setting created full audience access to every dimension of the program. Numerous attractive displays by publishers, booksellers, authors and sponsors provided participants with another level of instruction in foreshadowing the publication of conference papers in The Southern Quarterly by the University of Southern Mississippi

Kathleen McClain Jenkins, superintendent of the Natchez National Historic Park, succinctly set forth the charge that all of the scholars addressed: “The challenge of preservation is to transcend the past to find its meaning in the present.”

Other speakers, including William Kretzchmar, Charles Reagan Wilson, Will Campbell, Clarence Jones, Donald Kartiganer, Diane Williams, Suzanne Marrs, Todd Sanders, Davis Raines, Tricia Walker, Allyn Partin-Hernandez, Stephen Sloan, Jerry W. Ward Jr., Senator Thad Cochran and David G. Sansing, offered effective and powerful examples of the use of the South’s language in various aspects. This conference, which drew capacity crowds of diverse age, gender and race, is one truly worthy of MHC support and one that has represented well the MHC, NEH, MAC, NEA and other supporters.

The event’s content successfully taught a public audience, but it dramatically transcended mere instruction to offer insights that stimulated personal identification and cultural awareness at a praiseworthy level. Although the larger program was exemplary as a synthesis of the humanities disciplines, the setting, tone and individual sessions certainly affirmed Eudora Welty’s seminal analysis of a “a sense of place.”

Jack H. White of Columbus is an official Mississippi Humanities Council evaluator of the 2007 Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration.