MDAH News

Author Tracy Carr recently moderated a lively panel discussion exploring the life, work and unmistakable voice of celebrated Mississippi author Ellen Gilchrist called “Holding Court with the Queen: Conversations with Ellen Gilchrist” during History is Lunch at the Two Mississippi Museums.

The discussion featured Carr, author of Conversations with Ellen Gilchrist, alongside China Grove Journal editors Dr. Scott Anderson and Dr. Lucius “Luke” Lampton, and Holly Lange, founder of the Mississippi Book Festival. During the discussion, Gilchrist was described as “the last Southern writer.”

Born in Vicksburg, Gilchrist drew heavily from her own experiences as she developed the characters and stories that would define her literary career. Her life was anything but conventional, and was an important part of her writing.

Gilchrist attended Vanderbilt University before transferring to the University of Alabama and later Auburn University. She eventually left college after eloping with Marshall Walker. The couple had two children before divorcing. Gilchrist later married a judge, divorced, remarried Walker and had another child before their second divorce.

Following that second divorce, Gilchrist returned to Jackson, where her parents lived, and enrolled at Millsaps College. There, she took a class taught by beloved Mississippi author Eudora Welty.

The timing was remarkable. Welty taught at Millsaps for only one semester, and it happened to be the same semester Gilchrist enrolled.

“That was kismet,” Carr said.

Gilchrist later married again and moved to New Orleans, continuing a life marked by relationships, travel, and experiences that would ultimately find their way into her fiction.

During the program, Carr shared a short clip from the television program “Post Script,” featuring Gilchrist speaking about her early attraction to reading and describing it as a “lonely thing.”

“For those who have never heard her talk before, that was a treat,” Carr said. “Not just the content, but the style. She's thinking about something, she switches to this, and she's telling a story, and it's all over the place. You can imagine how fun this was to transcribe.”

Lange recalled similar experiences during her conversations with Gilchrist through the Mississippi Book Festival’s author sessions.

“You'll see where she literally looks off to the left and kind of drifts off in thought unrelated to anything that we were talking about in the room,” Lange said.

That distinctive conversational style is captured in Carr’s book, which features 18 interviews spanning 40 years and examines Gilchrist’s life and work through the headstrong, honest and often outrageous Southern female characters for which she became known.

Carr said the interviews were drawn from a wide range of sources, including television and radio appearances, print interviews, conference proceedings and book festival recordings.

Anderson and Lampton also shared memories of their longtime relationship with Gilchrist, which began during and continued after the publication of her stories in the China Grove Journal.

“She was just a lovely person,” Anderson said, recalling the affection Gilchrist developed for him and Lampton.

One of the stories shared during the discussion highlighted Gilchrist’s connection to Welty. In one of her autobiographical essays, Gilchrist recalled meeting Welty outside the Carnegie Library while accompanied by her three red-headed children.

Gilchrist introduced the children to Welty, describing herself as tired and exasperated by the demands of motherhood. Welty responded with a question that would stay with Gilchrist: “You have three children. Why do you need to write?”

Lampton, who serves as vice president of the Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, said Gilchrist possessed a remarkable combination of brilliance and levity.

“She could do anything with a great force of intellect and also a great sense of humor,” Lampton said.

He also recalled Gilchrist’s response when panelists asked whether she agreed with comparisons made between her and other prominent Southern writers.

“She liked that comparison, but she said, ‘You know, I'm really a poet,’” Lampton said.

That observation, he said, offers an important key to understanding Gilchrist’s body of work.

“I think her entire writing career, if you look at what she's about, she said that what she figured out—to be successful as a poet—was she needed to hide the poems in her fiction,” Lampton said. “And so a lot of what she's doing in her fiction is hiding her poems.”

History Is Lunch is a weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History that explores different aspects of the state's past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building in Jackson.

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

Nissan Neighbors has awarded a $40,000 grant to the Foundation for Mississippi History to support student field trips to the Two Mississippi Museums—the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

The grant will help offset costs during the 2026-2027 school year for visits to the museums related to admission, transportation, and on-site lunches, expanding access for thousands of students from Title I schools across the state. The Foundation for Mississippi History conducts fundraising efforts to help support and promote the projects and programs of Mississippi Department of Archives and History, which administers the Two Mississippi Museums.

“We are grateful to Nissan for its continued investment in our educational programs and the students we serve,” said MDAH Director Barry White. “Their support makes it possible to create engaging, hands-on learning experiences that bring history to life and give students the opportunity to connect with Mississippi’s past in meaningful ways.”

The grant renews a longstanding partnership between Nissan and the Two Mississippi Museums. Nissan contributed $500,000 to support the museums' opening and, through ongoing support from the Nissan Foundation, has helped expand educational access and learning opportunities for visitors and students throughout the years.

The support from Nissan Neighbors, with facilitation from the Nissan Foundation, ensures more young Mississippians can engage with the state’s rich and complex history at no cost to students, families, or schools.

“Now in its 34th year, Nissan Foundation remains steadfastly committed to enriching communities in collaboration with nonprofit organizations in areas Nissan calls home,” said Ali Tonn, senior manager of Philanthropy at Nissan North America and executive director of the Nissan Foundation.

Since its founding in 1992, the Nissan Foundation has contributed nearly $18 million to nonprofit organizations across the country. Its mission is to foster sustainable communities in areas where Nissan operates.

For more than two decades, Nissan has assembled vehicles in Canton, Mississippi. The plant employs more than 4,000 people and produces the Nissan Altima and Frontier.

The Two Mississippi Museums are located at 222 North Street in Jackson and are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

To learn more about field trip opportunities or to make a reservation, contact Crystal James, group tours coordinator, at cjames@mdah.ms.gov.

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

Andrew Young – a veteran civil rights activist who served as a Georgia congressman, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a former mayor of Atlanta – will deliver the Medgar Wiley Evers Lecture on Thursday, Sept. 3, at 6 p.m. at the Two Mississippi Museums.

Young will reflect on his life in public service and his longstanding ties to Mississippi in a conversation with Ebony Lumumba, a Foundation for Mississippi History board member and the department chair and associate professor of English at Jackson State University. The event, which is free and open to the public, will also feature a special performance by singer and dramatist Ayanna Gregory, daughter of the late comic and civil rights icon Dick Gregory.

“We’re honored to welcome Ambassador Young back to Mississippi,” Two Mississippi Museums Director Michael Morris said. “We’re looking forward to hearing him reminisce on his time here with Evers and other figures of the movement.”

In 1961, Young was named director of the Citizenship School Program housed at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, when Martin Luther King Jr. was president. He first met Medgar Evers through his work with the SCLC. 

His involvement in the Civil Rights Movement included being a key strategist in campaigns that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In Mississippi, Young participated in James Meredith’s March Against Fear in 1966. That same year, he accompanied Black students as they entered previously segregated schools in Grenada, Mississippi, alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

In 1968, Young helped launch the Poor People’s Campaign, a national movement focused on economic justice and the needs of Americans living in poverty.

Young was elected to Congress in 1972, the first African American from the Deep South since Reconstruction. In 1977, he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Jimmy Carter. He was elected Atlanta’s mayor in 1981 and re-elected in 1985.

“It is a rare opportunity to hear directly from a civil rights veteran who played such a significant role in ensuring all Americans have access to their constitutional rights,” Morris said.

Young has received honorary degrees from more than 100 universities and colleges in the U.S. and abroad and has received various awards, including an Emmy Lifetime Achievement award in 2011 and the Dan Sweat Award in 2017. His portrait also became part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

The Medgar Wiley Evers Lecture Series was established in 2003 to honor the legacy of Evers, a civil rights activist who was the NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi. His widow Myrlie Evers presented the Medgar and Myrlie Evers papers to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in 2002. 

Previous Evers lecturers include Joy Reid, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Lonnie Bunch, Henry Louis Gates, Robert P. Moses, and Manning Marable.

The event is sponsored by MDAH, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute.

In 2014, the Kellogg Foundation awarded $2.3 million to MDAH to support programming at the Two Mississippi Museums and fund a partnership between MDAH and the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute.

The Two Mississippi Museums—the interconnected Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum—opened December 9, 2017, in honor of the state’s bicentennial. The museums take visitors through the sweep of Mississippi history and the state’s role as ground zero in the nation’s Civil Rights Movement.

The special session recently called by Governor Tate Reeves was historic: It ended with passage of the first legislation in the Old Capitol in more than 120 years.

The Mississippi Chancery Youth Court Act of 2026 was passed in the Old Capitol House Chamber on July 17. This bill appears to be the first legislation passed at the Old Capitol since 1903. Archival records make no mention of legislation passed in the Old Capitol once the new state Capitol opened.

Governor Reeves called for a special session regarding the status of youth courts in the state. Construction at the current state Capitol prevented the session from being held in its House chamber.

Administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Old Capitol now serves as a free museum. The site is open to visitors Wednesday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Old Capitol Museum is Mississippi’s most historic building. It was the site of some of the state’s most significant political actions, such as the passage of the 1839 Married Women’s Property Act, Mississippi’s secession from the Union in 1861, and the crafting of the 1868 and 1890 state constitutions.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History hosts several genealogy workshops a year, teaching individuals how to trace their family history. During a recent workshop, Joyce Dixon-Lawson shared how the Dawes Rolls are a research tool for Native American genealogy. 

Lawson explored the ways in which participants can utilize census records, land deeds, and other files to build their family tree. She also encouraged the participants to use the archives at MDAH to research their families. 

Lawson has been researching and helping others find their genealogy for years. She formerly served as a manager of research and genealogy at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. Lawson told workshop participants that genealogy results can sometimes yield surprising results.

“Genealogy is personal. If you're not ready to embrace whatever record you find, genealogy is may not be something you want to do,” Lawson said.

Lawson encourages anyone who is researching to start with themselves and their families. “You start with what you know, and you systematically work your way down.” Lawson said.

She also reminded people to utilize MDAH resources, including census records, and to be persistent.

“Genealogy is a lifelong journey,” she said.

Ready to begin your genealogy search? Start here.

During a recent History Is Lunch presentation, author April Holm put forth that theological conflicts between the North and the South that preceded the Civil War, existed long after the war's end and reunion, shaping major evangelical denominations and influencing the relationship between the federal government and churches.

Holm, author of In Kingdom Divided: Evangelicals, Loyalty, and Sectionalism in the Civil War Era, is an assistant professor of history and associate director of the Center for Civil War Research at the University of Mississippi. Her book explores religion, morality, and politics during Reconstruction. Her recent presentation at the Two Mississippi Museums was part of the MDAH Religion Initiative, made possible through a grant by Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative. 

Holm said the religious rifts were a major contributing factor to the division between the North and South during Reconstruction. The divisions also led to Black churches forming across the nation.

Watch the presentation on the MDAH YouTube Channel.

Learn more about the MDAH Religion Initiative.

Ralph Boston, a native of Laurel, competed in three Olympic games – and won medals in each, including gold in 1960. His record-breaking track and field achievements are highlighted in the Mississippi Made exhibit at the Two Mississippi Museums – all thanks to his family who have loaned the artifacts for display.

Janna Newell, Boston’s niece, said loaning the Olympian’s shoes he wore during the games and three of his medals was a way of sharing his story with a new generation.

The Mississippi Made exhibit highlights several home-grown innovators, artists, entertainers, and athletes. The exhibit features 250 artifacts to reflect Mississippi’s contributions to American history. 

Boston was a record-breaking long jumper. He won his first Olympic medal – gold – in 1960. He won his silver medal at the 1964 Olympics and bronze at the 1968 Olympics.

The exhibit displays his spikes worn at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. One year later, he became the first man to jump over 27 feet, breaking his own world record.

Newell said Boston’s family always supported him.

“We were always very proud of his accomplishments. We didn’t think of him as a hero or somebody extremely special. We just knew him as our uncle,” Newell said. “To make it to one Olympics in itself is a beat but to go to three Olympics and medal in all three of them, that's something special.”

The medals and shoes have been loaned to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, which administers the Two Mississippi Museums. The artifacts will be on display until the exhibit closes Nov. 6. 

Newell said there’s a reason her family was willing to loan the artifacts to MDAH.

“These are the types of things that were instilled upon us – you should give back.”

See who else is highlighted in the Mississippi Made exhibit. Visit the Two Mississippi Museums.

Two days before our nation marked 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 19 people became American citizens during a ceremony at the Two Mississippi Museums.

Jennifer Jimenez was one of them. Before the ceremony, she toured the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History, where she likely saw stories of other immigrants who make up the fabric of Mississippi’s history.

So, after U.S. District Judge Kristi H. Johnson administered the oath, Jimenez succinctly shared how she felt in that moment.

“I am so proud,” said Jimenez, who was born in Panama. “It is good to know this country accepts you.”

In her remarks, Judge Johnson welcomed the new citizens to exercise their rights as Americans.

“I encourage you to strive to make this country, this state, your own community the best they can be, and exercise the rights and privileges you are now entitled to as an American citizen,” Johnson said. “Vote. Serve on a jury, if called. If you want to run for public office – run. But these new privileges and rights carry with them new responsibilities and duties.

“You have a duty to obey the law, pay your taxes, and defend your new country. We are always in need of good citizenship, no matter if we are naturalized or natural born, and we should all leave this ceremony today recommitting ourselves to the ideals represented in the United States Constitution,” she said.

The naturalization ceremony was part of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s activities to observe America250. This is the second year the ceremony has been held at the museums in collaboration with the U.S. District Court.

In his opening remarks, Spence Flatgard, president of the MDAH Board of Trustees, told the 19 they were being celebrated.

“You are part of our American family now,” Flatgard said.

The new citizens also received gifts from the Daughters of the American Revolution as they exited the stage with their Certificate of Naturalization.

For Nikitaben Kosada, originally from India, the moment was made even more poignant as it comes so close to the nation’s anniversary.

“It’s like being part of 250 years of history,” she said.

A Mississippi Department of Archives and History archivist recently catalogued an amazing artifact within the agency’s collections – a scrap of a white surrender flag from the Civil War.

Shaun Stalzer, MDAH’s senior archivist of government records, made the discovery while sorting through the collection.

A curious item grabbed his attention, and he was floored by what he found – a yellowing scrap of linen, about 5x10 inches, with these words printed in fading ink, "Piece of white flag that surrendered Ft. Lee, Vicksburg, July 4, 1863.”

MDAH Civil War experts were able to figure out the artifact’s backstory. It was determined that Private Willam C. Phipps of Company A, 11th Indiana Infantry, received this section of flag during the surrender of the Confederate Fort Garrott (then known as Fort Lee). The fort flew white flags of surrender when Confederate Lt. General John C. Pemberton surrendered to Maj. General Ulysses S. Grant. Phipps’ company captain ripped the Confederate surrender flag and distributed pieces to his soldiers.

This background information was determined by historian Jeff Giambrone and Shane Keil, deputy director of the MDAH Museum Division. Keil and Giambrone are currently identifying artifacts for the Vicksburg Civil War Visitor Center that will eventually open in the historic River City. Keil and Megan Bankston, Vicksburg Project manager, are leading the development of the museum that will be adjacent to the Vicksburg National Military Park.

The rare flag artifact will one day be on display at the Vicksburg Civil War Center. Until then, it can be viewed among many other artifacts online. Visit MDAH’s Historic Objects Collection page to see more. To learn more about MDAH’s work on the Vicksburg project, visit here.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History will accept applications for the Community Heritage Preservation Grant (CHPG) Program July 1 – Oct. 2. Communities across the state are encouraged to apply.

The CHPG program helps preserve, restore, rehabilitate, and interpret Mississippi courthouses and schools across the state. In communities that participate in the Certified Local Governments program, buildings other than courthouses and schools are also eligible, if they have been designated as Mississippi Landmarks.

“We are grateful to the 2026 Mississippi Legislature for funding this year’s program,” MDAH Director Barry White said. “The grant program benefits communities across the state, offering a resource to preserve their local structures, and in turn, their local histories.”

Since its inception in 2001, the CHPG program has provided more than $61 million in funding for 355 projects in 71 counties across Mississippi.

Eligible applicants are encouraged to review the application materials early in the application period to allow adequate time to prepare a complete the submission.

For more information, visit MDAH’s Preservation and Planning webpage. Applications must be submitted before 5 p.m. on Oct. 2.

The MDAH Board of Trustees will award the grants at its quarterly meeting in January 2027. For more information call 601-576-6535 or email chpg@mdah.ms.gov.