News Releases

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) has been awarded $187,059 by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to present two workshops on teaching civil rights history. 

This MDAH project was awarded as part of the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of History and Culture Grant program, and it will mark the 60th anniversary of a pivotal event in American history, 1964’s Freedom Summer. MDAH will partner with National History Day to coordinate and lead the program. 

Seventy teachers from across the nation will have the opportunity to attend one of two weeklong workshops starting at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, and then traveling to specific locations in the state that were central to the historic events of Freedom Summer. 

“This grant is an incredible opportunity for us to show how this landmark event goes beyond Mississippi history; it's truly a national event,” said Al Wheat, MDAH director of education. “Bringing teachers from across the country to Mississippi to see our sites, analyze our primary sources, and visit locations where the history actually happened will make a positive impact not just on workshop attendees, but on their students." 

Teachers will learn about the civil rights events in 1964 that changed Mississippi and the nation. The workshops, which will run from July 8–12, 2024, and July 22–26, 2024, will consist of two different groups of K-12 teachers, with 35 per group, who will gather at the Two Mississippi Museums and the MDAH archives to interact with historians, Civil Rights Movement veterans, educators, and museum professionals. Teachers will collaborate to develop inquiry-based classroom activities and lessons about Freedom Summer using primary sources found in MDAH’s archives and experiential, site-based learning at the Two Mississippi Museums and key civil rights sites across Mississippi.  

The Landmarks of American History and Culture program supports a series of one-week residential, virtual, and combined format workshops across the nation that enhance and strengthen how K-12 educators, higher education faculty, and humanities professionals study sites, areas, or regions of historic and cultural significance and incorporate place-based teaching and learning in the humanities. 

National Endowment for the Humanities: Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.