A Dual Debut
Mississippi is celebrating its bicentennial throughout 2017 with events scheduled in various parts of the state. But the festivities will culminate in December in the capital city of Jackson, where two new museums will open to tell the story of statehood, as well as Mississippi’s role in the civil rights movement. The two museums will sit adjacent to each other in a 200,000-square-foot center that has been funded with more than $107 million of public and private money.
The Museum of Mississippi History will tell the comprehensive story of the state, beginning with the area’s Native American inhabitants and continuing through slavery, statehood, the Civil War and Reconstruction, as well as events of the 20th and 21st centuries. Thousands of people around the state have donated artifacts to the museum, including a rare 20-star American flag that commemorates Mississippi’s entrance into the Union as the 20th state.
The second institution, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, will feature seven thematic galleries that tell the story of African-Americans’ struggle for freedom and justice in the state between 1945 and 1976.
www.give2mississippimuseums.com
B.B.’s Place
When Riley King worked at a cotton gin building in Indianola in the 1940s, he probably had little idea that he would become the world’s most famous blues musician or the building he labored in would one day house a museum in his honor. But the man, better known by his stage name, B.B. King came to define the sound of the blues, and the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center is a must-see destination for music fans in the region.
Exhibits highlight the cultural and historical happenings that took place in pivotal times and places, such as the 1930s in Mississippi; the 1950s in Memphis; and the 1960s, with the worldwide growth of King’s fame alongside the civil rights movement.
Visitors will also see plenty of King artifacts, including several of his guitars, all famously nicknamed Lucille. Interactive stations use video and sound to tell stories from King’s life. King died in 2015 and was buried in a memorial garden at the museum.
Ole Miss Museum
The University of Mississippi, better known to many as Ole Miss, is the intellectual and cultural center of Oxford, a town in the north-central part of the state. It is also home to one of the area’s most diverse and comprehensive museum collections: the University of Mississippi Museum.
The museum got its start in 1934 when a local art fan left her collections to the university, and art remains a significant part of its appeal. Strengths include its holdings in Southern folk art, Greek and Roman antiquities, American modernism and other artwork. Later acquisitions and expansions added historical items, such as 19th-century scientific instruments and American Revolutionary War documents, such as letters written by George Washington, John Hancock and John Adams.
The museum complex also includes Rowan Oak, a historic building that was once the home of Nobel- and Pulitzer-winning author William Faulkner, as well as the Walton-Young Historic House, which was home to critic and satirist Stark Young.
