Museum of Mississippi History

Mississippi Civil Rights Museum

In December 2017, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum opened in celebration of the state’s bicentennial.

The Two Mississippi Museums is a place where Mississippians tell their own stories of the state’s rich and complex history. These stories are told through the many resources from the collection of the Department of Archives and History. We present the history of our state as never before with eye-popping artifacts, photographs, videos, and interactive exhibits.

The state has committed over $90 million for this state-of-the art 200,000 square-foot center. It serves as a portal to other cultural attractions across the state, preserves and stores over 22,000 artifacts, and benefits hundreds of thousands of people a year through museum visits, public programs, and educational outreach.

While the majority of funding for the museums has been provided by the Mississippi Legislature, the Foundation for Mississippi History raised $17 million in private funds for exhibits and programs and is continuing to raise money for special programs, school visits, promotional initiatives, and new technology. You can support this private fundraising by making a one-time gift or becoming a Two Museums Member.

We want you to be a partner in this historic project for our state and hope you will join us as Mississippi makes history.

For tickets, hours of operation and other information, please click here. For the address and directions to the Two Mississippi Museums, please click here.

Museum of Mississippi History

The Museum of Mississippi History presents the entire sweep of the state’s history, from earliest times to the present, for all to see and learn. Visitors experience some of the newest interactive technology and exhibits developed by Design Minds.

Visitors learn about the Native Americans and their lasting mark on the state’s history and landscape, the exploration and eventual settlement by Europeans, and the brutal ways in which African men and women were forcibly brought to Mississippi and enslaved. Visitors also learn about secession and the Civil War, Reconstruction, a new constitution, the great migration and flood, two world wars, the impact of technology on farming, the diversification and industrialization of the economy, civil and voting rights gained by women and blacks, the growth and the battle over public education, among many other topics. They revel in the sounds and words of the world’s finest musicians and authors and see the significant impact of Mississippians on culture.

Thousands of Mississippians have donated artifacts, journals, family heirlooms, and other family treasures since 1902 when the Mississippi Department of Archives and History began collecting our state’s history. Visitors travel back in time as they view artifacts such as the 20-star American flag representing Mississippi’s admission into the Union, rare quilts by Mississippi artists, priceless letters, photographs, documents, an ornate necklace donated by descendants of a Federal soldier who stole it from a Jackson home during the Civil War, interviews by present day Choctaw leaders, and even a clock that stopped at the time Hurricane Katrina flooded a home on the Coast.

For tickets, hours of operation and other information, please click here. For directions to the Museum of Mississippi History, please click here.

Mississippi Civil Rights Museum

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum focuses on the period 1945 to 1976 when Mississippi was ground zero for the Civil Rights Movement nationwide.

Benefiting from feedback from statewide community meetings, an advisory scholars group, and the MCRM Advisory Commission, the firm Hilferty & Associates designed the exhibit plan for the nation’s first state-operated civil rights museum. Visitors see a miniature chess set molded from bread by a Freedom Rider at Parchman prison and the front doors of the Bryant store in Money, Mississippi, that Emmett Till walked through in the summer of 1955. They hear the stories and music of activists jailed during the movement and reflect on the consequences African Americans faced when “crossing the line” in Jim Crow Mississippi.

The story of the African American Mississippian’s struggle for freedom and justice is told through seven thematic galleries and mini theaters encircling a central gallery entitled “This Little Light of Mine.” This inspirational space carries the theme of the entire museum—that throughout Mississippi, ordinary people engaged in an extraordinary struggle to make real America’s promise of equal rights for all. A stunning sculpture and music honoring civil rights veterans is the focus of this dramatic light-filled central space.

For tickets, hours of operation and other information, please click here. For directions to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, please click here.