This year’s keynote speaker is Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch who will be speaking on her current research project “Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps: Rural Black Women’s Activism in Arkansas, 1913-1965.” Jones-Branch is currently Graduate School Dean at Arkansas State University. She is a Vaugh Endowed Professor of History and received her BA at the College of Charleston, her MA at the University of Charleston and PhD at Ohio State University. Other speakers will include Thomas Pickens with the Historians panel and students from Mylynka Cardona’s Women’s History Class at Texas A&M University-Commerce with the eyewitness panel. This conference is sponsored by Texas A&M University-Commerce and the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum. Registration required and includes a BBQ lunch. Contact the Museum at (903) 450-4502 to purchase tickets.