News Releases

Bradley Smith, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, has been named the 2025 Religion in Mississippi History Research Fellow. Smith will use archival holdings at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) to research the role of religion in Mississippi from the state's secession to the surrender of Vicksburg.

Theron Wilkerson, a doctoral student at Auburn University, has been named the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Research Fellow for 2025. Wilkerson will conduct research this summer in the Medgar Wiley and Myrlie Beasley Evers Papers housed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson.

A group of Mississippi students will head to the National History Day Contest in College Park, Maryland, in June after winning at the state level at an event hosted by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Kyle Alvey, a doctoral student at Purdue University, has been named the 2025 Eudora Welty Research Fellow. Alvey will use archival holdings in the Eudora Welty Collection housed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to research the life and work of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. to research the life and work of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

The Foundation for Mississippi History has been awarded a $1 million grant from the Community Foundation for Mississippi’s John and Lucy Shackelford Fund to support construction of Margaret Ann Crigler Park in downtown Jackson.

The Mississippi Historical Society held its annual meeting March 6-7 in Jackson to honor its 2025 award winners, including presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Frank Figgers, a lifelong civil rights and community activist.

Robert George Clark, Jr, died on Tuesday, March 4. He became the first African American elected to the Mississippi Legislature since Reconstruction, serving from 1967 to 2003 and rising to the rank of Speaker Pro Tempore in the Mississippi House.

To honor the legacy of the late Gov. William Winter, the Two Mississippi Museums will offer free admission to the public on Friday, Feb. 21. The free admission is made possible by Jones Walker LLP, which acquired Watkins, Ludlam, Winter and Stennis, where Governor Winter worked for over 50 years.

A new exhibit – Hurricane Katrina: Mississippi Remembers, Photographs by Melody Golding – opens at the Two Mississippi Museums on March 8. The exhibit opening is the first in a slate of programming marking the 20th anniversary of the devastating storm.