A MADDRAMA actress performs in "Take Me Back" at the University of Texas at Tyler in Tyler, Texas, on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2018. MADDRAMA, Making A Difference Doing Respectable And Meaningful Art, conducts educational workshops, supports the cultural enhancement of communities, aims to heighten awareness of theater as a cultural art form and produces plays. (Chelsea Purgahn/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Students from Mississippi’s Jackson State University traveled all the way to the University of Texas at Tyler to perform “Take Me Back: A Theatrical Journey of Unsettling Memories” to mark Black History Month.

The students are a part of the group MADDRAMA, Making A Difference Doing Respectable And Meaningful Art, which is part of the Special Interest Council at Jackson State. The group conducts educational workshops, supports the cultural enhancement of communities, aims to heighten awareness of theater as a cultural art form, and produces plays.

The production recalls the memories of those who suffered, bled and died in the struggle for civil rights, with special tribute paid to Medgar Evers, Emmett Till, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney.

Through spoken word and song, the actors take audience members through the civil rights era and depict how events during that time remain relevant.

The show was commissioned by Tulane University in 2004 for the 40th anniversary of the civil rights movement, and the group has performed it every year since.

With the founding of MADDRAMA in 2004, the students began to travel extensively. The group has performed in Michigan, California, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee and Georgia in addition to its home state of Mississippi.

MADDRAMA has over 125 members and has shared the stage with notable figures including Vanessa Bell Calloway, Cornell West, Louis Farrakhan and Irma P. Hall, among others.

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