MDAH News

MDAH Board of Trustees to Hold Public Reception, Quarterly Meeting in Columbus in October

The board of trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History will convene next month in Columbus, hosting a public reception ahead of its regular board meeting.

The nine-member board is comprised of community leaders from across Mississippi. Board Vice President Nancy Carpenter, who is a resident of Columbus, organized the public reception set for Oct. 10, at 5 p.m. at Whitehall, a Greek Revival home listed in the National Historic Register and located at 607 3rd St. South.

The board meeting, which is also public, will be Oct. 11, at 9 a.m. at Mississippi University for Women in Room 206 of Turner Hall, 411 11th Street South.

The other MDAH Board of Trustees are Spence Flatgard of Ridgeland, president; Cyrus Ben of Philadelphia; Reginald Buckley of Jackson; Carter Burns of Natchez; Betsey Hamilton of New Albany; Mark E. Keenum of Starkville; Lucius M. Lampton of Magnolia; and TJ Taylor of Madison.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is the second-oldest state department of archives and history in the United States. The department collects, preserves, and provides access to the archival resources of the state, administers various museums and historic sites, and oversees statewide programs for historic preservation, state and local government records management, and publications. For more information, call 601-576-6850 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.

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Library of Congress Awards MDAH $100,000 Grant to Expand  Primary Source Education in Mississippi

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) has received a $100,000 grant from the Library of Congress to expand primary source education at some secondary schools in the state. The MDAH Programs and Communication Division education staff will lead the project in collaboration with Teaching Primary Sources (TPS) Mississippi 

TPS Mississippi is part of the Library of Congress TPS Consortium, which helps educators enhance students’ critical thinking, analytical skills, and content knowledge using the organization’s collection of millions of primary sources.  

“We are grateful to the Library of Congress for their support of this project,” said Kari Baker, MDAH assistant director of education. “With their teachers’ guidance, students will grow in their understanding of how to analyze, comprehend, and interpret primary sources, which are firsthand accounts such as letters, images or articles from the time of an event.”  

The grant-funded project runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2025. During that time, middle and high school students in the Jackson metropolitan area will engage in project-based learning through primary source research in the classroom, allowing them to develop confidence and proficiency in both creating and interpreting research-based projects.  

Additionally, educators will gain professional development to implement primary source instruction through various resources, including a free teacher workshop on Nov. 7 at the Two Mississippi Museums.  

“The Library of Congress’s Teaching with Primary Sources helps connect teachers to the rich primary sources held by the Library of Congress and provides teaching and learning resources that help teachers use these primary sources in the classroom,” said Kenneth V. Anthony, interim head of Mississippi State University's Department of Teacher Education and Leadership. Anthony, a lead organizer of TPS Mississippi, will guide professional development for teachers and some lessons for students as part of the project. 

The grant also funds the creation of Digital Snapshot Exhibits on the history of Hurricane Camille, Hurricane Katrina, and the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Digital Snapshot Exhibits are developed in partnership with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Digital Humanities Center and are designed to introduce lesser-known, selected collections from MDAH's Digital Archives.  

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is the second-oldest state department of archives and history in the United States. The department collects, preserves, and provides access to the archival resources of the state, administers various museums and historic sites, and oversees statewide programs for historic preservation, state and local government records management, and publications. For more information, call 601-576-6850 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.

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Public Screening of An Ordinary Hero: The True Story of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland on Aug. 11

A free, public screening of An Ordinary Hero: The True Story of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland will be held Sunday, Aug. 11, at 2 p.m. in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Two Mississippi Museums.

Mulholland’s son, Loki, directed the film about his mother’s civil rights activism. Both are scheduled to attend the screening, which is part of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s monthly Sunday Screening series.

“Joan Trumpauer Mulholland’s experience during the Mississippi Movement is something we can all learn from and be inspired by,” said Michael Morris, director of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History. “Screening this film is an opportunity reflect on her contributions and share her story with new audiences."

​In 1961, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, then 19, had participated in more than three dozen protests and was incarcerated on death row at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman after joining the Freedom Rides. Upon her release, she enrolled at the historically Black Tougaloo College, becoming the first White woman to do so.

Mulholland served as the secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was a central figure of the Woolworth Sit-in in Jackson, Mississippi. By the time she was 23, she had participated in more than 50 sit-ins and demonstrations, including the March on Washington, the Meredith March Against Fear, and the Selma to Montgomery March.

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Arlington, Virginia. She worked at the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Justice Department and taught English as a second language.

In 2023, Mulholland was awarded an honorary doctorate from Tougaloo College. She is the recipient of the 2020 Simeon Booker Award for Courage, the 2019 International Civil Rights Museum Trailblazer Award, and the 2015 National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award.

Loki Mulholland is an Emmy-winning filmmaker, author and activist. He is the author of “She Stood for Freedom” and “Get Back to the Counter.” His films include “An Ordinary Hero: The True Story of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland,” “Black, White & Us,” and “The Evers.”

The Two Mississippi Museums opened Dec. 9, 2017, in celebration of the state's bicentennial. Museum hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 9 a.m.– 5 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m.– 5 p.m. The Two Mississippi Museums are located at 222 North St. in Jackson. For more information, visit the MDAH Facebook page or email info@mdah.ms.gov. 
 

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MDAH Repatriates Native American Ancestors in Continued Commitment to Tribal Partners

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) has repatriated the remains of 95 Native American Ancestors and 1,500 lots of funerary objects to the Chickasaw Nation from sites across northern Mississippi. 

“We continue to work closely with Tribal representatives and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation ACT (NAGPRA) in our commitment to the repatriation of Native American Ancestors and cultural objects currently held in the care of MDAH,” said Katie Blount, director of the state agency. “We are grateful to the Chickasaw Nation for their partnership and consultation during this important process.”

Throughout the process of repatriation, MDAH prioritizes transparency, respect, and connection to the original inhabitants of Mississippi lands. In 2021, MDAH transferred the remains of 403 Native Americans and 83 lots of burial objects to the Chickasaw Nation.

Since the 19th century, archaeological excavations have unearthed hundreds of the ancestral remains of people who once inhabited the state and whose cultures, languages and traditions continue today. The passage of NAGPRA gave Native populations the right to claim ancestors and cultural objects in the care of institutions receiving federal funds.

Amber Hood of the Chickasaw Nation said: “These ancestors are not just numbers or statistics; they are family members who were loved and grieved at the time of their death. We maintain a spiritual connection to the people that came before us. Working on NAGPRA cases takes an emotional toll, but it is up to us to advocate on their behalf. The Chickasaw Nation remains committed in our pursuit to repatriate and respectfully rebury our ancestors’ earthly remains. We appreciate that MDAH shares that same goal and has committed to their Repatriate Mississippi Initiative.”

For more information email info@mdah.ms.gov. Learn more about NAGPRA at  www.nps.gov/nagpra and nagpra.mdah.ms.gov.
 

 

 

 

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Two Mississippi Museums Awarded Nissan Foundation Grant in Support of Field Trip Program

The Nissan Foundation has named the Two Mississippi Museums—the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and Museum of Mississippi History—as a 2024 grant recipient.

The $50,000 grant will help fund field trips during the 2024-2025 school year, defraying costs for admission, travel, and on-site lunches for students. The gift will continue to help bring thousands of students each year from Title I schools to the Two Mississippi Museums.

“We are grateful to the Nissan Foundation for their continued support of our field trip program,” said Katie Blount, director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Students are our most important visitors. Nissan’s support creates opportunities for them to learn and interpret history free of charge at a state-of-the-art museum complex.”

“We’re honored to support the work of the Two Mississippi Museums,” said Chandra Vasser, president of the Nissan Foundation and Nissan’s first chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer. “The Nissan Foundation is about building community by valuing diversity, and this field trip program from the Two Mississippi Museums brings that mission to life.”

In the 32 years since its conception, the Nissan Foundation has awarded nearly $17 million to more than 150 nonprofit organizations to support innovative programs that break down societal barriers and build inclusive communities through education and outreach. Grant recipients promote cultural diversity across a variety of arts, education, social, and public programs in seven U.S. communities where Nissan operates.

The Two Mississippi Museums opened on Dec. 9, 2017, in celebration of the state's bicentennial. Museum hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 9 a.m.– 5 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m.– 5 p.m. The Two Mississippi Museums are located at 222 North St. in Jackson. For more information, visit the MDAH Facebook page or email info@mdah.ms.gov.  To reserve or learn more about field trips at the Two Mississippi Museums, contact Candace Williams, group tours coordinator at the Two Mississippi Museums, at cwilliams@mdah.ms.gov.

The Nissan Foundation was created in 1992 as a thoughtful response to civil unrest that occurred near Nissan North America’s then-U.S. sales and marketing operations in Southern California following the Rodney King trial verdict. Nissan established a $5 million endowment to promote cultural diversity.
 

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The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Wins Tripadvisor’s® 2024 Travelers’ Choice® Award

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum has been recognized in Tripadvisor’s® Travelers’ Choice® Awards for 2024. The award honors businesses that consistently earn great reviews, placing them among the top 10 percent of listings around the world on Tripadvisor.

As the world’s largest travel guidance platform, Tripadvisor has unparalleled authority with travelers and diners. This award is based on genuine feedback from anyone in the community who has visited and left an authentic, firsthand review on Tripadvisor over a 12-month period, making it a valuable and trustworthy designation of great places to visit.

“We are honored to be included among travelers’ favorites this year,” said Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums – the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and Museum of Mississippi History. “While we’re grateful to all our visitors, this recognition also reflects the commitment of our staff, donors, and members who support our work to tell Mississippi’s stories.”

“Congratulations to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on its recognition in Tripadvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Awards for 2024,” said John Boris, chief growth officer at Tripadvisor. “Travelers’ Choice honors businesses that consistently demonstrate a commitment to hospitality excellence. This means you have made such a memorable impact on your visitors that many of them took the time to go online and leave a great review about their experience. We hope this recognition continues to drive business to you in 2024 and beyond.”

Check out all the reviews and discover more about the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum here.

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum opened in tandem with the Museum of Mississippi History on December 9, 2017, in celebration of the state's bicentennial. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum explores the period from 1945 to 1976, when Mississippi was ground zero for the Civil Rights Movement nationally. The Museum of Mississippi History explores the entire sweep of Mississippi’s territorial and state history and inhabitants of its land. 
The Mississippi State Legislature provides majority of the funding for the museums, with visitor fees and private donations supplementing the operation of the facilities. The Legislature also provided $90 million for construction; another 20 million was raised privately for exhibits and endowment.


About Tripadvisor
Tripadvisor, the world's largest travel guidance platform*, helps millions of people each month** become better travelers, from planning to booking to taking a trip. Travelers across the globe use the Tripadvisor site and app to discover where to stay, what to do and where to eat based on guidance from those who have been there before. With more than 1 billion reviews and contributions, travelers turn to Tripadvisor to find deals on accommodations, book experiences, reserve tables at delicious restaurants and discover great places nearby.

*  Source: SimilarWeb, unique users de-duplicated monthly, September 2023
** Source: Tripadvisor internal log files
 

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Atomic Alert!: Confronting ‘The Bomb’ in the New Atomic Age Exhibit Opens Sept. 7

Atomic Alert!: Confronting ‘The Bomb’ in the New Atomic Age, a free traveling exhibition designed by Overland Traveling Exhibits, opens Sept. 7 at the Two Mississippi Museums and will be on display through Nov. 8. The exhibition explores the history of the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) established to prepare Americans for the perils of the new Atomic Age.

In August 1945, in the waning days of World War II, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on cities in Japan. Four years later, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic weapon, and the Cold War began. Nuclear testing made its way to Mississippi through the detonation of two nuclear devices outside of Hattiesburg. The first test, Project Salmon, occurred in October 1964 and, roughly two years later, Project Sterling followed, which used a smaller bomb in the cavity left behind by the first blast.

“The Two Mississippi Museums are excited to share this free, special exhibit,” said Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums. “We welcome the public to explore and learn about Mississippi’s role in nuclear testing during the Atomic Age.”

The exhibition puts a special focus on the educational and volunteer programs of the FCDA, which encouraged the building of bomb shelters, the establishment of neighborhood wardens, and taught children to “duck and cover.” Atomic Alert! includes a striking artistic interpretation of the impact of a nuclear blast, featuring the silhouette of a bomb roughly the size and shape of the bombs dropped in World War II.

Visitors can immerse themselves in the era with Mississippi artifacts that tell the story of the state’s response to nuclear threat, including stocking civil defense hospital supplies. Other exhibit artifacts include a Geiger counter used to detect ionizing radiation on objects at ground level and a booklet that instructed families who did not have designated shelters on how to construct a shelter within their home.

Atomic Alert!: Confronting ‘The Bomb’ in the New Atomic Age programming includes two free History Is Lunch programs on Sept. 25 and Oct. 9 and two free gallery talks on Oct. 10 and Oct. 22.

Atomic Alert! was developed, designed, built, and toured by Overland Traveling Exhibits and independent Atomic Age scholar Michael Scheibach. Founding institutions for the exhibition include the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County in Moorhead, Minnesota.

For more information, go to https://2mm.mdah.ms.gov/atomic-alert or call 601-576-6850. 

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Tribal Chief Ben Elected to MDAH Board of Trustees

Tribal Chief Cyrus Ben, the fifth democratically elected chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, has been elected to the board of trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH). The action took place at the regular meeting of the MDAH Board of Trustees on Friday, July 12. His nomination will be submitted to the Mississippi State Senate for confirmation.

Chief Ben will be the first Native American and member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians elected to the MDAH Board of Trustees.

“Chief Ben brings an excellent background of public service and leadership experience,” said Spence Flatgard, MDAH Board of Trustees president. “MDAH will benefit greatly from his expertise and dedication.  We are thrilled to have him on our Board.”

A lifelong resident of the Pearl River community, Chief Ben has a 15-year record of public service and leadership to the Choctaw Tribal government, including eight years as the Tribal Council representative for the Pearl River community. He was elected as Tribal Chief in July 2019 and re-elected in 2023. He also served on the Mississippi State Flag Commission, which oversaw the selection of the new state flag that includes a symbol of native territory before statehood.

Chief Ben holds a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi College and an associate’s degree from East Central Community College. 

A member of the Mississippi USA Semiquincentennial Commission that will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026, Chief Ben is also a board member of the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service and serves as a delegate on the Health Resources and Services Administration Tribal Advisory Council, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Equity Tribal Advisory Committee.
Board nominees must be confirmed by the state Senate. Members serve six-year terms. Other members of the board of trustees are Flatgard of Ridgeland, president; Nancy Carpenter of Columbus, vice president; Reginald Buckley of Jackson; Carter Burns of Natchez; Betsey Hamilton of New Albany; Mark E. Keenum of Starkville; Lucius M. Lampton of Magnolia; and TJ Taylor of Madison. 
 

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is the second-oldest state department of archives and history in the United States. The department collects, preserves, and provides access to the archival resources of the state, administers various museums and historic sites, and oversees statewide programs for historic preservation, state and local government records management, and publications.  For more information, call 601-576-6850 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.  
 

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Mississippi Students Excel at National History Day Contest

Thirty-six students from across Mississippi represented the state at the 2024 National History Day (NHD) contest hosted at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. NHD is a program for middle and high school students to research, produce, and present a historical research project. Winners at the state level competition, Mississippi History Day (MDH) hosted by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH), progress to NHD. 

I am incredibly proud of our Mississippi students for showing how intelligent and creative they are on the national stage,” said MDAH outreach programs coordinator Bently Cochran. We look forward to next year as we expand the program and strive to be bigger and better than ever.”  

NHD affiliates include all fifty states and the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, and international schools in Europe and Asia. About 3,000 students from across the United States and overseas compete each June.

Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science (MSMS) senior Harrison Shao won first place in the senior paper category for From Small Wonder to Big Salvation: How the Mass Production of Penicillin Became Possible in the Early 1940s. Shao's teacher, Kayla Hester, attended NHD with Shao and three other students from MSMS. 

Shao is the first Mississippi student to win first place at NHD. He was also one of four students in the nation who won the National History Academy Scholarship worth $10,000.  

Starkville High School (SHS) sophomore Walter Giesen placed eighth in the individual documentary category for Mississippi Turning: The Pivotal Role of School Desegregation in a Southern Town. Giesen's teachers, Craig and Maggie Wood, attended NHD with Giesen and nine other students from SHS. 

Additionally, MSMS sophomore Keylee Lang was one of forty-eight competitors to have their project exhibited at the National Museum of American History during NHD. Lang’s senior individual project is titled “The Modern Woman: How Flappers Changed Society’s Views of Women.”  

Mississippi students averaged in the top fifty percent in the nation at the competition in their first-round rooms, a first for the state. Among these NHD participants were: Samar Rahimi, grade eleven, and Dylan Michael Wiley, grade twelve, MSMS; Amy Choi, grade nine, Sachiko Clay, Jimin Kim, Mirae Nishikawa, and Claire Rhee, grade ten, Johnny Ford, grade eleven, Chyla Hanna, Jenna Holder, and Lindy Peterson, grade twelve, SHS; Trinity Collins and Heidi Overstreet, grade eleven, William Hardwick, Lucas Houston, and William Warfield, grade twelve, Hernando High School; Londyn Kirkland, Marlasha Johnson, Theo Milnor, Cambreh Spires, and Jatayla Williams, grade ten, Tougaloo Early College High School. 

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Community Curation Day: Photograph Preservation

Learn how to preserve photos at 10 a.m. on Saturday, July 13, for our Community Curation Day. Laura Heller, MDAH acquisitions & collections coordinator, will demonstrate how to best preserve photographs. Visitors may bring in family photographs or photographic items for advice on how to best preserve and store precious family items. Archival materials will be available for a limited time. This program is free and open to the public. Space is limited. Register here.

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