Featured Image: People for Black History’s display at their table in the Boling University Center in Martin, Tennessee on Feb. 16, 2026. (Pacer Photo / Miranda Conrad)

The University of Tennessee at Martin introduced “Evolving Narratives: Tennessee Initiative for Civic Engagement” (ENTICE) on Wednesday, Jan. 7 as a rebranding of its traditional Civil Rights Conference that occurred every February of the past 26 years.

History Professor Henri Giles, Ph.D., who is responsible for directing and organizing all the events for the conference, assured in a UT Martin press release that the event was still a celebration of civil rights and would “continue having those conversations in a broader way.”

Despite her explanation, a vocal group of students and professors were not pleased with the rebranding and responded with protest around campus.

The most vocal group of students was the on-campus organization People for Black History (PBH), who started a petition to reverse the changes made to the Civil Rights Conference. Their most common place of protest was the Boling University Center, where they set up a table and urged students who passed by to sign their petition. As of Feb. 24, they have reached around 100 signatures.

PBH member Melle Fuqua, a freshman philosophy major from Memphis, Tennessee, was among the students who supported the reversal of the rebranding.

“There have been a lot of changes on campus recently that remove mentions of minorities, inclusivity and diversity on campus. We don’t stand for that, ever. It is one step in removing the mention of Black history,” said Fuqua.

History professor and African American studies expert David Barber, Ph.D., is the faculty adviser and strategist for PBH and their acts of protest.

As a decades-old supporter of civil rights, Barber brought experience from his youth to encourage students to fight for change on campus.

“I work the tables and I give what knowledge I have. I am a veteran of the social struggles of the 1960s. I was only 18 in 1968. So, I have some experience with social movements,” said Barber. “I bring that history to People for Black History.”

As a supporter of Black history, Barber saw the “Civil Rights Conference” as a proper event to honor that history, since he believed that the Civil Rights Movement was the most important social movement in the U.S.

“Taking that name away dishonors that history and erases that history,” said Barber. “The erasure of that history is exactly what Donald Trump is doing in this country today.”

Barber continued to describe why he believed there had been a nationwide erasure of Black history during the current Trump administration. One noteworthy event he discussed was the removal of the slave display at George Washington’s house in Philadelphia on Thursday, Jan. 22, as his proof of the supposed shift towards repressing Black history.

Barber fears that the renaming of the Civil Rights Conference was a step towards the kind of behavior that has occurred under the Trump administration, which he believes would eventually diminish every Black history-related event on campus.

“Black history is the real history of this country. In the absence of Black history, what we’ve got is this glorified history of people who courageously came to this empty continent and conquered the wilderness, which of course is a lie,” said Barber. “It’s only when we look at this country through the experience of Black people that we get the real and only American history.”

In sharp contrast to Barber’s claims, Department of History and Philosophy Chair David Coffey, Ph.D., explained that the changes were made to broaden the scope of the original conference while still celebrating civil rights.

“Chancellor Freeman asked us to consider a name change for the conference, and the reason for that was to better market the whole concept of not just the Civil Rights Conference, but the year-long series of events that we have now such as the Henry Parker speaker series,” said Coffey. “And frankly, we felt like the name of the Civil Rights Conference would attract political resistance, and we wanted to avoid that.”

Jeffrey Bibbee, Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, provided similar reasons for the conference’s rebranding.

“The chancellor had some interest in exploring how the series could grow and expand to include our six academic centers across West Tennessee, and also how it might grow beyond just the month of February,” said Bibbee.

Coffey went further to explain that the conference had grown far beyond its roots, having initially been a three-day event with only one keynote speaker. Even when compared to recent years, Coffey claimed that the conference had a similar quantity and quality of speakers this year, including CNN’s Van Jones and Abby Phillip.

“A few years ago it was moved to basically a month-long event that had a series of speakers and other events,” he said. “We’ve had over the years some absolute giants of the Civil Rights Movement from Diane Nash to the Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles. We’ve had Julian Bond, Bobby Seale, former Black Panther. Just an amazing array of speakers, and this year’s might not be as prominent.”

He claimed the lack of prominent civil rights activists speaking in ENTICE did not come from a change in theme, but rather the scarcity of living leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

“We want to expand the understanding of civil rights and social justice to include everyone. And by including Latino voices, Asian American voices and immigrant communities of all kinds, we engage more people and we touch on more topics,” said Coffey.

When questioned about what he thought of the protests, Coffey explained that they did nothing but hinder what was essentially the “Civil Rights Conference” they claimed to defend.

“The criticisms are uninformed and misleading. And I think that’s an unfortunate development that has completely mischaracterized the nature of the program this year and has sought to discredit the efforts that have gone into it, the motivations of the university and its administration,” Coffey said.

Giles was unavailable for comment concerning the ENTICE programming and maintained that she stood by her original statements in the official UTM news release.

Dean Bibbee encouraged students who were displeased with the ENTICE programming to discuss their desires with those responsible for running the event.

“Share with Dr. Giles the types of programming you’d like to see. Share with Dr. Coffey. Share with me,” said Bibbee. “I think that’s going to make it even more exciting if we’re responsive to the conversation students want to have and helping facilitate those conversations on campus.”