“The emancipation of the soul involves surrender – the surrender of a lower to a higher self, the surrender of legend to fact, the surrender of narrow to wide horizons, the surrender of exclusive to inclusive fellowships.”
– Fred L. Brownlee, general corresponding secretary of the American Missionary Association, 1946, New York City.

In the spring of 1963, The New York Art Committee for Tougaloo College established Mississippi’s first collection of modern art.  Tougaloo College was established in 1869 by the American Missionary Association of New York, a nineteenth century integrated abolitionist society, with a mission to eradicate slavery and systems of caste. Amidst civil rights protests in a fiercely segregated state, the New York Art Committee, led by famed art writer and critic Dore Ashton, transformed Tougaloo College into a hub of European and New York School modernism and, as envisioned by the collection’s founders, “an interracial oasis in which the fine arts are the focus and magnet.”