MDAH News

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) is pleased to announce the opening of the Eudora Welty House & Garden (EWHG) Potting Shed. The Garden Club of Jackson awarded a grant to the Eudora Welty Foundation to renovate the interior of the Welty family garage, which was originally built along with the family home in 1925 and has been converted into a much-needed potting shed and workshop.

“For the first time, this potting shed allows our garden volunteers, Cereus Weeders, a proper, dedicated space with the right equipment they need to do the weekly, hands-on work of preserving the Welty garden,” said Jessica Russell, EWHG director. “It also provides the EWHG a special opportunity to serve our local community.

Both Eudora Welty’s prose and personal correspondence are rich with imagery from the natural world. Eudora Welty once said, “I wish I had a sign to tell me what I had better do that day, write or work in the garden.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author mentioned in her published works more than 150 types of plants and flowers, many of which grow around her home to this day.

For Eudora Welty, gardening was not a distraction from her writing; it was an inspiration for it. Her biographer, Dr. Suzanne Marrs, observed that for Welty, “the garden and writing were linked at some profound level.”

The design team, Arkansas-based company Natural State Design, LLC (NSD), hand-selected aged materials, board by board, to blend with the building’s historic period. NSD worked closely with Welty staff and retired garden consultant Susan Haltom to meet a wide variety of needs and purposes.

Today, the Welty garden is largely maintained by the dedicated “Cereus Weeders,” a volunteer organization named after Eudora Welty’s Night-Blooming Cereus Club, a group of friends who frequently entertained themselves by attending Night-Blooming Cereus flower-watching parties in Jackson in the 1930s.

For more information call 601-576-6934 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.

The family-oriented traveling exhibit Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See will open on Saturday, April 1, at the Two Mississippi Museums and run through Sunday, May 14, 2023.   

Emmett Till was visiting Mississippi from his home in Chicago in 1955 when he was tortured and murdered for whistling at a White woman.

Developed by the Till family, Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley Institute, Emmett Till Interpretive Center, and The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the exhibit shares how a mother’s bravery and fight for justice more than six decades ago fueled the Civil Rights Movement in America. 

“Through this exhibition, we invite people to bear witness to the painful history of racial violence in the United States, and to explore the transformative actions of a grieving mother,” said Pamela D.C. Junior, director of the Two Mississippi Museums.   

“Learning more about Emmett Till’s story is difficult, but I believe it’s crucial for families to understand what happened during the cruel and senseless tragedy to help people heal from prejudice and discrimination and to prevent senseless acts of violence today,” said Jennifer Pace Robinson, president and CEO, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See will close on Sunday, May 14, and then travel to the DuSable Museum of African American History in Illinois, Atlanta History Center in Georgia, and National Civil Rights Museum in Tennessee before reaching its permanent destination at the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi. This exhibit is recommended for ages ten and up. 

The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute, a non-profit organization, is engaged in research and social justice advocacy. It is dedicated to preserving the memory and historical significance of the life and death of Emmett Till, and preserving the social action legacy of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. For more information about the Till Institute, visit www.tillinstitute.org.

The Emmett Till Interpretive Center was formed to confront the brutal truth of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in the Mississippi Delta and to seek justice for the Till family and Delta community. The Center aims to tell the story of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is a nonprofit institution committed to creating extraordinary learning experiences across the arts, sciences, and humanities that have the power to transform the lives of children and families. For more information about The Children’s Museum, visit www.childrensmuseum.org.

This project was made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom, the Maddox Foundation in Hernando, the Institute for Museum and Library Services [MH-249226-OMS-21], and the Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior [15.904].

Museum hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. The Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum—Two Mississippi Museums—are located at 222 North Street in Jackson. For more call 601-576-6850 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.  

Live Oak Cemetery in Greenville was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 2, 2023. The National Register of Historic Places was established by Congress in 1966 to help identify and protect historically significant properties. It is administered in Mississippi by the Department of Archives and History. 

Live Oak Cemetery is among the largest and oldest Black cemeteries in Mississippi and was, during Greenville’s most prosperous decades, the town’s only burial site for African Americans.  Between circa 1850 and 1969, more than seven hundred people were buried there. One of the most notable burials was Holt Collier (1848-1936), a former enslaved person, soldier and master hunting and tracking guide. Collier served as the guide in 1902 for President Theodore Roosevelt in Sharkey County when Roosevelt famously refused to shoot a black bear tethered to a tree by Collier during the hunt. News accounts of the president’s sportsmanship led to the creation of the world-famous toy, the “Teddy Bear.” 

Also interred at Live Oak are Reverend. E.W. Lampton, Mississippi’s first Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and John W. Strauther, a local banker, business owner, and civic leader, as well as eighty-three veterans from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Graves of Civil War veterans include those of the U.S. Colored Infantry and U.S. Colored Cavalry.  

“We are grateful to the National Park Service for recognizing the historical significance of Live Oak Cemetery,” said MDAH director Katie Blount. “We also thank the many local people who have worked over the years to preserve and maintain this site that is so central to Greenville’s African American culture and history.” 

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

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The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) and the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) will hold the Mississippi Freedom Seder on March 28, 2023, at 6 p.m. at the Two Mississippi Museums. Inspired by the 1969 Freedom Seder, where hundreds of people of all backgrounds gathered to explore and celebrate freedom in the context of the Civil Rights Movement, this communal event invites participants to the Passover table for an evening of commemoration, stories, and community.  

“We are pleased to co-host this Freedom Seder with our community partners,” said Katie Blount, MDAH director.  “In doing so, we remember the courage of visiting Jewish Freedom Summer volunteers in 1964 and Jewish Mississippians who advocated for racial equality in the Civil Rights Movement.”   

 “Our Mississippi Freedom Seder in 2019 brought our communities together for conversation and reflection,” said Michele Schipper, CEO of the ISJL. “We are excited to co-host this event again and tell these Mississippi stories.”

This program will feature original music from Lapidus & Myles, a collaboration between Rabbi Micah Lapidus and Mississippi native Melvin K. Myles.

Passover is an eight-day Jewish holiday, referred to as the “festival of freedom.” Passover celebrates the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. The traditional meal, where the story of Passover is shared along with rituals, readings, songs, and food, is called a Seder. Seders celebrate freedom from bondage and freedom from oppression, providing a shared communal celebration of freedom and friendship for all.   

At the first Freedom Seder, held on April 4, 1969, more than 800 people gathered in a church in Washington, DC, to commemorate the first anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. Using the words of the traditional Passover Seder, calling for justice, peace, and liberation, the 1969 Freedom Seder strengthened Black and Jewish community relations and established a touchstone for contemporary Seders.  

This participatory program will include a Passover meal. All are welcome and invited to join us in honoring this historic tradition.  

Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for youth and are available here. For more information, call 601-576-6800 or email info@twomississippimuseums.com.

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