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FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), the world’s largest express transportation company, is supporting free admission to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and Museum of Mississippi History on Monday, January 17, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The museums will also be free on Sunday, January 16.

“We are grateful to FedEx for their continued support of our annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration,” said Katie Blount, director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

“At FedEx, we believe that when we connect people and possibilities, we can change the world,” said Rose Flenorl, manager of Global Citizenship at FedEx Services. "We are proud to support free public admission to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and Museum of Mississippi History, to help visitors connect with Dr. King’s legacy, and leave inspired to drive positive changes of their own.”

The museums will open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, January 17. Museum hours for Sunday, January 16, are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Safety precautions at the museums include requiring all visitors to wear face masks and observe social distancing guidelines while inside the building.

At 6 p.m. on Monday, January 17, join us for the annual MLK Night of Culture program in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Two Mississippi Museums. This year’s theme is “Those Who Stayed,” inspired by the stories of the individuals who remained in Mississippi during the Great Migration, a population movement of African Americans who left their homes to seek better opportunities in the northern and western states in response to racial injustice in the rural South. The event is free and includes live poetry and performances by Jackson State University’s MADDRAMA theatre troupe, Hinds Community College’s MONTAGE Theatre of Dance, and other featured artists. Seating is limited. The event will also be streamed live on the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Facebook page.

Dr. King’s involvement in Mississippi included attending the funeral of NAACP state field secretary Medgar Evers in 1963, visiting Greenwood in support of Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964, and testifying in support of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) during the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

For more information, call 601-576-6850 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) will award fellowships of up to $2,000 to support individuals hoping to locate information related to their family history using resources available at MDAH. The fellowships are a part of a year-long initiative in 2022 to expand understanding of the Great Migration and its impact on Mississippi and the nation.

“The Great Migration is the largest internal migration of people in U.S. history. Many families who left Mississippi still feel a close connection to our state. We’re glad to be able to help them come back to Mississippi and research their roots,” said MDAH director Katie Blount.

Ten research stipends of up to $2,000 will be awarded to ten researchers to travel to Jackson, MS, and conduct three consecutive days of research at MDAH. Selected applicants may schedule their fellowships during the months of February, April, May, June, and July 2022. The stipend may be used to cover travel, accommodations, and other expenses accrued during the researcher’s time at MDAH such as the cost of copies. For more information or to apply, click here.

The Great Migration Initiative is a partnership between MDAH and the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA). Additional programs and events include the exhibitions A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration at MMA, The Negro Motorist Green Book Guide at MDAH, joint teacher workshop, and other programs related to art and history. For more information on the Great Migration Initiative, email info@mdah.ms.gov.

Christian Pinnen’s Complexion of Empire in Natchez, Race and Slavery in the Mississippi Borderlands, published by the University of Georgia Press, has won the Mississippi Historical Society’s award for the best Mississippi history book published in 2021. 

April Holm, associate professor of history at the University of Mississippi, chaired the selection panel. She quoted one panel member who stated, “This book is focused on Mississippi history, is deeply researched and original, and was engaging to read. It is filled with individual stories as well as thoughtful analysis, and engages with Mississippi history in a truly global context. Pinnen weaves together legal history, race, and gender to show how the interplay of Native Americans, people of African descent, and European and American settlers created the changing landscape of slavery in early Mississippi."

Pinnen is an associate professor of history at Mississippi College and teaches U.S. history, history of the Old South, Latin American survey, the American Revolution, and American slavery. He is also the co-author with Charles Weeks of Colonial Mississippi: A Borrowed Land.

The Mississippi Historical Society’s Book of the Year Award goes to the best book on a subject related to Mississippi history or biography. The prize carries a $700 cash award.

Pinnen will accept the award and deliver a lecture during the Mississippi Historical Society’s annual meeting in Hattiesburg on March 10-11, 2022.

The Mississippi Historical Society, founded in 1858, encourages outstanding work in interpreting, teaching, and preserving Mississippi history. Membership is open to anyone; benefits include receiving the Journal of Mississippi History, the Mississippi History Newsletter, and discounts at the Mississippi Museum Store. For information on becoming a member, call 601-576-6936.

MDAH received the Southeastern Museums Conference's Gold Award for its recent exhibition Mississippi Distilled: Prohibition, Piety, and Politics. The Gold Award was presented in the over $100,000 budget category and recognizes museums that showcase exhibitions of merit that are well designed, have educational value, and treat the objects with care and respect. Exhibitions were judged by an appointed jury of museum professionals across the region who specialize in  curatorial studies and exhibition design. 

Mississippi Distilled was an immersive exhibit that explored the state’s tumultuous relationship with alcohol from the colonial period to today. It featured fascinating artifacts, enticing stories, and surprising images that took visitors on a journey. The exhibition ran from July 7, 2020, through June 26, 2021.

Award winners were celebrated at SEMC's 2021 annual meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee. MDAH staff members pictured above are, on the front row (from left) Nan Prince, Jessica O'Connor, and Madeleine Miller; and, on the back row (from left), Sam Butz, Tony Schnadelbach, Barbara McClendon, Shane Keil, and Megan Bankston. 

In observance of New Year’s Day, The Two Mississippi Museums, Eudora Welty House & Garden, and Grand Village of the Natchez Indians will close early at 3 p.m. on Friday, December 31, and be closed on Saturday, January 1. The Nissan Cafe by Nick Wallace Culinary at the Two Mississippi Museums will be closed through Sunday, January 2.

The archives library will be closed Friday, December 31–Saturday, January 1.

Visit www.mdah.ms.gov/explore-mississippi for more information about each site.

On Saturday, November 20, join us for the Holiday Open House at the Mississippi Museum Store. The come-and-go event is free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Enjoy samples from Mississippi vendors, special sale prices on select merchandise, artist and maker meet-and-greet opportunities, and additional discounts for museum members.

Nick Wallace Culinary will provide tasty food samplings, and other local vendors will also offer delicious treats.

The event includes book signings, custom hand-written invitations and ornaments, complimentary gift packaging, and a 10 percent discount on all merchandise. Museum members will receive a 20 percent discount on store items. Become a museum member online at give2mississippimuseums.com or purchase a membership during the event.

The Mississippi Museum Store offers one of the state’s finest collections of folk art, local handmade crafts, and books by and about Mississippians. Find unique holiday gifts for everyone on your list this year at the Mississippi Museum Store while visiting with local artists and makers. Shop artisan-made items for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. Highlighted merchandise includes Walter Anderson prints, Wolfe Studio birds, Harold Miller sculptures, and Shearwater Pottery. Other Mississippi-made products featured in the store are candles, jewelry, gourmet products, museum souvenirs, newly-designed Mississippi state flag merchandise, and much more.

The Mississippi Museum Store at the Two Mississippi Museums is open Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The museums open free of charge on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. are located at 222 North Street in Jackson. Call 601-576-6921 or email store@mdah.ms.gov for more information.

On Friday, December 3, enjoy free live music, holiday decorations, and treats during the 2021 Christmas by Candlelight Tour. In addition to the traditional features of the tour—shuttle buses, model train exhibit—this year's event will coincide with the City of Jackson's Capital City Lights, the kickoff event of the city's year-long bicentennial celebration. 

The Mississippi State Capitol and four MDAH sites will be open and sporting holiday decorations: the Mississippi Governor's Mansion, the grounds of the Old Capitol Museum, Museum of Mississippi History, and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. 

Park and take advantage of the shuttle buses running between sites, walk or drive and come and go on your own schedule. The Candlelight tour takes place from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. Capital City Lights will continue with additional activities, including shopping at two outdoor markets, Magnolia Marketplace and JXN Flea, classic cars, emergency vehicles set up in touch-a-truck style, live music, hot chocolate, caroling, marching bands, holiday décor, and of course…LIGHTS! 

Governor Tate Reeves and First Lady Elee Reeves will welcome visitors to the Mississippi Governor's Mansion, along with Santa. The model town of Possum Ridge and its trains will be displayed on the second floor of the Two Mississippi Museums—the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum—and the Mississippi Museum Store will be open. The museums will also feature a sixteen-foot Christmas tree. The Old Capitol Museum will be decorated and lit, and choirs will perform on the grounds. A jazz ensemble will perform at the Mississippi State Capitol, which will be decorated and open for tours. 

On November 28, 1821, the Mississippi Legislature designated LeFleur's Bluff as the site of the state capitol. Jackson's first map was completed in April 1822 and consisted of the areas between High and South Streets and between Jefferson and West Streets. 

The legislature incorporated the town and named Jackson the county seat of Hinds County in 1822. The Mississippi Legislature first met in Jackson on December 23, 1822 in a nonextant structure. In 1839, legislators began convening in a newly-built statehouse, which now serves as the Old Capitol Museum. The current Mississippi State Capitol was completed in 1903.

The Capital City Lights planning committee consists of members of City of Jackson, MDAH, GJAC, Visit Jackson, Downtown Jackson Partners, local hoteliers, retailers and residents.  

For more information about the Christmas by Candlelight Tour, call 601-576-6850 or email info@mdah.ms.gov. For more information about Capital City Lights, email J. David Lewis at jdlewis@city.jackson.ms.us.  

The Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum are partnering with the Daughters of the American Revolution, Mississippi Veterans Affairs, and Mississippi War Veterans Memorial Commission to honor Mississippians who serve and have served in the United States Armed Forces. The event begins at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 10, on the Entergy Mississippi Plaza in front of the Two Mississippi Museums. COVID-19 precautions will be in place.

“Mississippi’s extraordinary record of military service is one of the most inspiring stories that we share in the Two Mississippi Museums,” said MDAH director Katie Blount. “We are pleased to join with our military service organizations to pay special tribute to all the many Mississippians who have served our country.”

The program will include a performance by the 41st Army Band, a moment of silence, recognition of the veterans in attendance, memorial volley, wreath laying, and a keynote speech delivered by Major General Janson D. Boyles—the Adjutant General of the Mississippi National Guard. The museums are offering free admission to those currently serving in the military, veterans, and a family member of a veteran on November 10. The museums open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. The museums open free of charge on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information, call 601-540-2794 or email Colonel Allen McDaniel at amcdaniel@ngams.org.

On Tuesday, October 19, The Two Mississippi Museums will host Un(re)solved: Conversation with Jerry Mitchell and Margaret Burnham to discuss the civil rights cold cases highlighted in Un(re)solved—the PBS Frontline traveling augmented-reality exhibit at the Two Mississippi Museums. The event will start at noon and is free and open to the public. It will also be live streamed via the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Facebook page. Margaret Burnham is the founder and director of Northeastern University School of Law’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJP), and Jerry Mitchell is a renowned investigative reporter. 

Margaret Burnham and the CRRJP investigate racial violence in the Jim Crow era and other historical failures of the criminal justice system, including Franklin County Mississippi law enforcement officials accused of assisting Klansmen in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Henry Dee and Charles Eddie Moore in 1964. Burnham is lead advisor for Un(re)solved, and her investigations are featured in the documentary American Reckoning.   

Jerry Mitchell has been investigating civil rights-era crimes for more than thirty years and he is the founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. Mitchell’s reporting helped lead to convictions in cases such as the 1963 assassination of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, the 1963 16^th Street Baptist Church bombing, and the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Mitchell served on the advisory council that helped guide the development of the Unresolved project.    

Un(re)solved, PBS Frontline’s traveling augmented-reality exhibit, is now open at the Two Mississippi Museums and will run through October 24. Drawing on more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents, and dozens of first-hand interviews with family members—as well as current and former Justice Department and FBI officials, state and local law enforcement, lawmakers, civil rights leaders and investigative journalists—the multi-platform exhibit examines the federal government’s effort to investigate more than 150 civil rights-era cold cases through the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.   

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a $458,007 grant to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) from the Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) program. The SHARP grant was created to help cultural and educational institutions recover from the economic impact of the pandemic. Funding for this grant is used to retain and rehire workers, as well as reopen sites, facilities, and programs.

“The American Rescue Plan recognizes that the cultural and educational sectors are essential components of the United States economy and civic life, vital to the health and resilience of American communities,” said NEH Acting Chairman Adam Wolfson. “These new grants will provide a lifeline to the country’s colleges and universities, museums, libraries, archives, historical sites and societies, save thousands of jobs in the humanities placed at risk by the pandemic, and help bring economic recovery to cultural and educational institutions and those they serve.”

MDAH plans to use the funding from the SHARP grant to cover operating cost at the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum as well as expand its digital engagement initiative.

“We are grateful to our state’s congressional delegation and the Mississippi Humanities Council for their help and support during the pandemic,” said MDAH director Katie Blount. “These funds will help us expand our public programs and outreach as we emerge from covid.”

The Museum of Mississippi History opened alongside the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in 2017 to celebrate the state's bicentennial. The Museum of Mississippi History explores the entire sweep of the state's history. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum explores the period from 1945 to 1976, when Mississippi was ground zero for the Civil Rights Movement nationally. The Two Mississippi Museums are administered by MDAH.