Mississippi in Black and White, 1865–1941

The road to Reconstruction for the South remained clouded by wounds of war and competing plans for the future. The federal policy called Reconstruction intended to rebuild the Southern states and bring them back into the Union. Black Mississippians emerged from slavery with their first hopeful glimpses of freedom. They eagerly built communities with businesses, schools, and churches. They voted and won election to office. But freedom was fragile. By the turn of the century, Jim Crow laws disenfranchised African Americans, eliminated equality under the law, and ushered in segregation.

From the Gallery

Explore artifacts, photos, and documents featured in the Mississippi in Black and White gallery.

Timeline: 1865–1910

Remember Their Names

From 1882 to 1970 more than 500 men and women were lynched in Mississippi. Five monoliths in this gallery are inscribed with 445 names and alleged "crimes" to bear witness to the violence White people employed to maintain White supremacy at the start of the Jim Crow Era. 
 

Wesley Thomas

Male, Vicksburg, Attempted Assault of a White Woman

Lynched in Port Gibson in 1889 for “attempted rape.”

Video Tour

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.

John Roy Lynch - Thomas and Joan Gandy Photographic Collection, Mss. 3778, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collection, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, LA

Representative John Roy Lynch

The child of a slave mother and Irish plantation manager father in Vidalia, Louisiana, John R. Lynch and his mother were sold to a Natchez planter after his father’s death. A self-educated man, Lynch operated a photography studio and became active in the Republican Party after the Civil War. Governor Adelbert Ames appointed him justice of the peace in 1869. The same year, he won election to the state legislature, later serving as Speaker of the House. In 1873, he won election to the US House of Representatives. In Congress, Lynch argued for the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which banned discrimination in public accommodations. He served three terms, overcoming voter intimidation and vote tampering by his Democratic opponents. In 1913, he published Facts of Reconstruction to refute the Lost Cause narrative of the period.

Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce - Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, HABS DC,WASH,399--1

Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce

Blanche Kelso Bruce rose from slavery to the US Senate. Born a Virginia slave, Bruce was taught by his young master’s tutor. He left his master at the beginning of the Civil War and moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he taught school briefly before continuing his education at Oberlin College in Ohio. After the war, Bruce worked on a Mississippi steamer for a year before settling in Bolivar County, where he became a successful planter. Active in Republican state politics, Bruce served as sheriff and tax collector (1872-1875), before the state legislature elected him to the US Senate, the first African American to serve a full term (1875-1881).

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.

The Piney Woods School

The Piney Woods SchoolFounded by Laurence C. Jones in 1909, it is the largest, independent African American boarding school in the United States.

5096 US Highway 49
Piney Woods, Mississippi

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William Johnson House

William Johnson HouseExplores the lives of free African Americans in the pre-Civil War South

210 State Street
Natchez, Mississippi 

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