Education

Winners of the 2021 Mississippi History Day State Contest were announced in a virtual awards ceremony on April 17. First, second, and third place winners were chosen from the five contest categories. Special awards were also presented to students based on their projects.

"We are so incredibly proud of what students across the state were able to produce this year,” said Al Wheat, state coordinator for Mississippi History Day and MDAH director of education. “Despite all the hurdles in front of them, these students were able to conduct research and create projects that were bordering on, if not exceeding, college level work. All the participants should be thrilled with the work they did this year."

More than eighty student projects were submitted for the annual event, which was held virtually for the second year in a row due to COVID-19. Judges from MDAH, the University of Southern Mississippi, the Mississippi Historical Society, and other organizations analyzed student papers, documentaries, websites, exhibits, performances, and research related to this year’s annual theme, “Communication in History: The Key to Understanding.”

The 2021 Mississippi History Day awards ceremony is available for viewing on the Mississippi History Day Facebook page. For more information about Mississippi History Day, visit the MDAH official website. Winning entries from the contest categories are listed below:

Senior Paper

First Place—Aline L. (Oak Grove High School), "Making Myths Out of History: Remembering Bulgaria's Batak Massacre"

Second Place—Emma L. (Pascagoula High School), "The Fighter in the Writer: Dr. Seuss’s Wartime Cartoons, Military Education Videos, and Political Allegories"

Third Place—Shirl C. (Pascagoula High School), "The American Code Girls of WWII: Cracking the Code of Communication"

Junior Individual Exhibit

First Place—Abigail M. (Jefferson Middle School), "British Suffrage Movement: The Struggle to be Understood"

Senior Individual Exhibit

First Place—Elsie A. (Lafayette High School), “Protest In The Spirit of Crazy Horse: The American Indian Movement”

Second Place—Berkley M. (Lafayette High School), “War Pigeons: The Unsung Heroes of Communication in the World Wars”

Third Place—Grace F. (Lafayette High School), “Communication of Culper Spy Ring”

Senior Group Exhibit

First Place—Mia D. and Olivia R. (Lafayette High School), "How the Titanic Communicated a New Message"

Second Place—Kailey G. and Caden C. (Lafayette High School), "FDR: Chatting with the Nation"

Third Place—Sara Jane W. and London-Grace D. (Lafayette High School), "The Inevitable Invention of the Internet and How it Changed the World"

Senior Individual Performance

First Place—Sarah H. (Lafayette High School), "Why Braille Is Important: The True Story"

Senior Individual Documentary

First Place—Nathan G. (Mississippi School for Math and Science), "Tapping in the Heart of Darkness"

Second Place—April G. (Starkville High School), "Stirring the American Conscious: How Lewis Hine Exposed the Harsh Realities of Child Labor Through Social Photography"

Third Place—Sloane C. (Lafayette High School), "Eleanor Roosevelt: Heroine Behind the Scenes"

Senior Group Documentary

First Place—Marly K. and Genesis W. (Lafayette High School), "Comic Book Communication: You Can Be Anything"

Second Place—Madison B. and Braylon R. (Lafayette High School), "The American Experience Through Selma's Eyes"

Third Place—Mary Margaret B., Kate D., Amanda K., and Neely W. (Starkville High School) "Jerry Mitchell: Uncovering the Truth"

Senior Individual Website

First Place—Haley M. (Pascagoula High School), "Why We March - How the Language of Protest was the Key to LGBT Liberation"

Second Place—Catherine W. (Lafayette High School), “A Lady Never Tells...: The WWII Women in Espionage and Intelligence”

Third Place—Aubrey G. (Lafayette High School), "Music and How it Tells our Stories"

Senior Group Website

First Place—Amanda Z., Jessica Y., and Amy Z. (Mississippi School for Math and Science), "Hello Girls: The Trailblazers of Telecommunication in WWI"

Second Place—Ja'Shaylee M. and Ja'Kaylee M. (Pascagoula High School), "The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom"

Third Place—Nina P., Khushi P., Kinjal P., and Kashama M. (Mississippi School for Math and Science), "The Diversity of Indo-Aryan Languages in India"

SPECIAL AWARDS

Best Project in Mississippi History (Sponsored by the Mississippi Historical Society)

Winner—Presleigh L. and Sydney H. (Lafayette High School), "The King of Rock and Roll: Message through Music"

Honorable Mention—Danaria W. (Lafayette High School), "Ida B. Wells: Shedding Light on Atrocities through Journalism"

Black History Award (Sponsored by the Center for Black Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi)

Winner—Ja'Shaylee M. and Ja'Kaylee M. (Pascagoula High School), "The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom"

Honorable Mention—Kyle T. and Bralen W. (Lafayette High School), "Music: A Major Factor in Civil Rights"

Best Project in Mass Media (Sponsored by the Mississippi Public Broadcasting Foundation)

Winner—April G. (Starkville High School), "Stirring the American Conscious: How Lewis Hine Exposed the Harsh Realities of Child Labor Through Social Photography"

Honorable Mention - Elsa P. (Lafayette High School), "The Jazz Singer: Revolutionizing Film Culture With Song"

Best Project in Gulf South History (Sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Gulf South at the University of Southern Mississippi)

Winner—Benjamin F. (Lafayette High School), "Blues: The Other Side of History"

Honorable Mention—Addison J. and Brooke H. (Lafayette High School), "Hidden Maps: Communicating Freedom in Quilts"

Archival Award (Sponsored by the Society of Mississippi Archivists)

Winner—Sloane C. (Lafayette High School), "Eleanor Roosevelt: Heroine Behind the Scenes"

Honorable Mention—Shirl C. (Pascagoula High School), "The American Code Girls of WWII: Cracking the Code of Communication"

Oral History Award (Sponsored by the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at the University of Southern Mississippi)

Winner—Marly K. and Genesis W. (Lafayette High School), "Comic Book Communication: You Can Be Anything"

Women’s History Award (Sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies Center at the University of Southern Mississippi)

Winner—Catherine W. (Lafayette High School), “A Lady Never Tells...: The WWII Women in Espionage and Intelligence”

Honorable Mention—Amanda Z., Jessica Y., and Amy Z. (Mississippi School for Math and Science), "Hello Girls: The Trailblazers of Telecommunication in WWI"

Best Project in Military History (Sponsored by the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Southern Mississippi)

Winner—Nathan G. (Mississippi School for Math and Science), "Tapping in the Heart of Darkness"

Honorable Mention—Berkley M. (Lafayette High School), "War Pigeons: The Unsung Heroes of Communication in the World Wars"

Best Projects in the Humanities (Sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council)

Winner—Angelica N. (Pascagoula High School), "Viva La Raza: The Chicano Movement"

Winner—Kenaysia S., Daleisha F., Gabby M., and Jaylen C. (Pascagoula High School), "Communication in Civil Rights: The Pink Triangle.. A New Meaning"

Winner—Haley M. (Pascagoula High School), "Why We March - How the Language of Protest was the Key to LGBT Liberation"

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) and the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute have named Teona Williams, a doctoral candidate at Yale University, the 2020 Medgar and Myrlie Evers Research Scholar. Williams’s research covers African American tenant farmers and civil rights activists who advocated for land cooperatives from the 1930s through the 1980s.

While at the Mississippi state archives, Williams will use the papers of Medgar and Myrlie Evers to understand how the NAACP advocated for black sharecroppers across the Delta, materials on the Republic of New Africa (RNA), Emergency Land Fund ephemera, and the Tougaloo College Civil Rights Collection.

“I eagerly await the opportunity to explore the Jackson Advocate and other associated material of the RNA to document the multiple strands of land ideology that sprouted out of black nationalists movements,” said Williams. “I am excited to explore the Medgar Evers papers to understand how the NAACP advocated for black sharecroppers across the Delta.”

Williams graduated with a BA in environmental studies and history from Bowdoin College. She holds an MA from the University of Michigan, and she is currently at work on a PhD in the Department of History at Yale University. Her dissertation follows the wide network of Delta farmers and civil rights activists and their collective struggle to establish land cooperatives.

Williams will use the $4,000 award to cover travel, housing, and other expenses while doing primary research at MDAH.

“We’re delighted to partner with the Evers Institute on this scholarship,” said David Pilcher, director of the MDAH Archives and Record Services Division. “Our goal is to facilitate new and exciting research using the tremendous resources here at the state archives.”

The Medgar and Myrlie Evers Research Scholars Program, a collaboration between MDAH and the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute, encourages work in the history of civil and human rights using the state archives’ holdings to publish original research.

The Evers Papers may be accessed at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson. For more information on the Evers Scholar program or about the Evers Papers, contact Laura Heller at lheller@mdah.ms.gov.