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1 <br /> ORANGE COUNTY <br /> BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br /> ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br /> Meeting Date: May 21, 2019 <br /> Action Agenda <br /> Item No. 4-a <br /> SUBJECT: Proclamation Recognizing Professor William (Bill) R. Ferris <br /> DEPARTMENT: BOCC <br /> ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: <br /> Proclamation Donna Baker, Clerk to the Orange <br /> County Board of Commissioners, <br /> 919-245-2130 <br /> PURPOSE: To consider approval of a proclamation recognizing Professor William (Bill) R. <br /> Ferris for his contributions to the local and worldwide arts and history community. <br /> BACKGROUND: William (Bill) R. Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History <br /> Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Ferris is also a former <br /> chairperson of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1997-2001), and has written or <br /> edited ten books and created 15 documentary films. His work has included co-editing <br /> the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. <br /> Professor Ferris' books include: Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues <br /> (2009) which was translated into French as Les Voix du Mississippi (2013); The Storied South: <br /> Voices of Writers and Artists, and The South in Color: A Visual Journal (2016). Professor Ferris <br /> also curated "I Am a Man": Civil Rights Photographs in the American South — 1960-1970, which <br /> opened in the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier, France in October, 2018. <br /> Professor Ferris' most recent publication, Voices of Mississippi, is a 2018 box set published by <br /> Dust to Digital containing three CDs of his recordings of blues, gospel and stories, a DVD of his <br /> documentary films, and a book. In 2019, Voices of Mississippi received two Grammy Awards <br /> for Best Liner Notes and Best Historical Album. <br /> Professor Ferris' honors include the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities, the American <br /> Library Association's Dartmouth Medal, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award, and <br /> the W.C. Handy Blues Award. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine named him among the Top Ten <br /> Professors in the United States. He is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society, and received <br /> the B. L. C. Wailes Award, given to a Mississippian who has achieved national recognition in the <br /> field of history by the Mississippi Historical Society. In 2017, Ferris received the Mississippi <br /> Governor's Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. <br />