Join us on Sunday, December 26, at 5:30 p.m. in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Two Mississippi Museums for our annual Kwanzaa celebration co-sponsored with the Women for Progress of Mississippi, Inc. For more information, email mail@womenforprogress.net or visit the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Facebook page.
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.
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.
Enjoy food and beverage samples from some of Mississippi's best. Join us for book signings, food and beverage samplings, artist and maker meet-and-greet opportunities and shop holiday specials at the Mississippi Museum Store--including a 10% discount on all merchandise. Museum members will receive a 20% discount on store items.
MDAH is 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 program will take place on the Entergy Mississippi Plaza in front of the Two Mississippi Museums under COVID-19 precautions.
Spend a day as an archaeologist at the Two Mississippi Museums! Learn how to clean authentic artifacts excavated in Mississippi, view different aspects of Native American culture, try your hand at reconstructing a broken modern vessel, use stone tools to shave a deer hide, and learn more about the early peoples of Mississippi through guided tours of archaeological exhibits in the Museum of Mississippi History. For more information, visit the Museum of Mississippi History Facebook page.
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 16th 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.
Join us for Trick or Treat at the Two Mississippi Museums on Saturday, October 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Discover mysteries from Mississippi's past with our scavenger hunt, trick or treat, and craft stations placed throughout the building for spirited holiday fun. Children are invited to participate in our “Two Mississippi Museums Monster March” Halloween costume parade at 11 a.m. Admission to the museums is free during the event.
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.