Written By Lisa Breslin
Finksburg resident Ryan Koons learned some amazing lessons during his junior year at Dickinson College this year, but most of them were not in the classroom.
Koons joined a team of college students and professors who examined, among other things, the role of music in civil rights movements in South Africa and an impoverished county in the Mississippi Delta.
A music history major who is focusing on ethnomusicology, Koons traveled to King William’s Town, South Africa last July, and then, in October, to Jonestown, Mississippi, where he and the research team interviewed residents and recorded their stories and music about times that were far from peaceful.
“We stayed with host families who became more like family than hosts,” Koons said. “The kindness and the connections we made with people in both locations were unbelievably rewarding.”
The project that took Koons, 21, and his team to South Africa and Mississippi is part of a larger venture at the Carlisle, PA college called the Black Liberation Movements Mosaic. It was led by Assistant Professor of History Jeremy Ball, Professor of History Kim Lacy Rogers and Assistant Professor of Music Amy Wlodarski.
The students’ recorded interviews, photographs, song recordings, and transcriptions have been placed in an archives at the Community Studies Center at Dickinson. Much of their work is available on a web site dedicated to the project as well.
The journeys and the research taught Koons that “people from far-flung parts of the world are not much different than we are. There is a brotherhood in humanity; I saw myself in others in the Mississippi Delta and in people in South Africa.
“I also noticed the power and the camaraderie linked to community activism,” said Koons. “In some of the most impoverished towns, we found humanity thriving.”
Koons, a graduate of Westminster High and the son of Ken and Stephanie Koons, will present his research at the Oral History Association (OHA) annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky this October. He hopes to continue his ethnomusicology studies on a graduate level after completing his undergraduate degree at Dickinson.
To learn more about the project, see photographs or listen to field recordings, visit itech.dickinson.edu/blacklib.
