Telisha Dionne Bailey, a post-doctoral teaching fellow at the University of Virginia, has been named the 2018 Medgar and Myrlie Evers Research Scholar. Bailey’s research examines the complex and often overlooked history of the imprisonment of African American women in Mississippi between 1890 and 1980.

While at the Mississippi state archives, Bailey will work in the papers of Medgar Evers from his time as field secretary for the NAACP to develop a clearer understanding of Evers’s involvement in the Freedom Rides in Mississippi. Continue reading

The Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum will participate in the annual Blue Star Museums program to offer free admission to the nation’s active duty military personnel and their families. The free admission program runs from Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day 2018. Continue reading

Two short documentary films created for the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (MCRM) have been honored by the American Alliance of Museums. The museum’s Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner Theater won a gold MUSE award for Video, Film, and Computer Animation, while the MCRM’s Freedom Summer Immersive Theater won an honorable mention in the same category. Continue reading

FROM MDAH RELEASES — A former Germantown High School teacher and current Mississippi State University graduate student has been named the 2018 Eudora Welty Fellow. Caroline Brandon will use the $2,000 award to allow her to work in the Eudora Welty Collection at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson this summer.

“Eudora Welty depicted strong female characters in her fiction,” Brandon said. “I want to follow changes the author made as she developed the stories to see if her revisions add complexity to those female protagonists or limit them to better align with societal expectations.” Continue reading