Mississippi Civil Rights Museum | Mississippi Civil Rights Museum

MISSISSIPPI CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM
222 NORTH STREET
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

HOURS
TUESDAY–SATURDAY 9AM–5PM
SUNDAY 11AM–5PM

Explore the Galleries

Explore the movement that changed the nation. Discover stories of Mississippians like Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Vernon Dahmer, as well as those who traveled many miles to stand beside them, come what may, in the name of equal rights for all.

Explore the Galleries at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum

Points of Light

The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi is full of ordinary men and women who refused to sit silently while their brothers and sisters were denied their basic freedoms. A number of these heroes are featured throughout the museum as Points of Light, shining exemplars of dignity, strength, and perseverance in the face of oppression.

Eudora Welty

Immediately upon learning of the assassination of Medgar Evers, Eudora Welty responded with a powerful story—its title asked, “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” The Jackson native had worked as a WPA junior publicity agent during the Depression, and while traveling for the WPA, she photographed people in her home state. Her fiction captured the culture, including the racial climate, of Natchez, the Delta, and other Mississippi locales. In her story, “The Demonstrators,” she described the murders of two Black people in a Delta town, noting what little impact the deaths had on White people. In “Where Is the Voice Coming From,” Welty wrote from the perspective of the killer (then unknown).

Senator Hiram Revels

Born free in North Carolina, Hiram Revels committed his life to education, church, and community. During the Civil War, Revels organized two Black regiments in Maryland, and founded a freedmen's school in St. Louis. An ordained minister, Revels followed the Union Army to Jackson, where he lectured and organized Black churches and schools. Moving to Vicksburg in 1864, he served as chaplain of a Black regiment and minister of the Bethel A.M.E. Church. He also assisted the provost marshal of the Freedmen’s Bureau. In 1866, Revels became pastor at Zion A.M.E. Church in Natchez. There, he was appointed alderman before winning a seat in the state senate in 1869. A year later, his colleagues in the Mississippi legislature elected him as the first African American US senator in the nation’s history.

Explore Mississippi

Many of the homes, colleges, and historic sites discussed in this gallery still exist today. Journey beyond the museum walls and explore the places where history happened.