By Julianne G. Crane
Just a little more than two years ago, Two Mississippi Museums opened in downtown Jackson in celebration of the state’s bicentennial. The Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum share a common entrance and lobby.
Museum of Mississippi History
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| Museum of Mississippi History (MississippiMuseums.org) |
The Mississippi History museum explores more than 15,000 years of state history from the Paleozoic age to the present. However, it offers little coverage of the civil rights era, leaving that to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. Visitors will experience innovative exhibits, educational programs, and hundreds of artifacts.
Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
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| Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (MississippiMuseums.org) |
The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum is the first museum about the U.S. civil rights movement to be sponsored by an individual state.
Visitors move through eight galleries surrounding a central rotunda. Galleries covering the slave trade, then Emancipation, Proclamation, and Reconstruction that created African American communities that began to thrive. Then folks enter a large room dominated by a tree. “The tree represents lynching, and on the leaves are images of lynchings and the types of discrimination permitted and encouraged by Jim Crow laws,” according to a posting on Wikipedia.
The remaining galleries are more spacious, and “focus on a 30-year period during which Mississippi was in the forefront of the civil rights struggle. Included in these sections are an exhibit on individuals murdered for their civil rights activism.”
Parking for large RVs can be challenging. Call the museum (601-576-6800) for information on the nearest parking.
If you go:
Two Mississippi Museums
222 North St
Jackson, MS 39201
Phone: 601-576-6800
Hours:
Tuesday–Saturday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday 1–5 p.m.
Closed Mondays
Admission to both Museums:
Adult: $15
Youth (ages 4–18): $8
Senior (ages 60+) or military: $13
Children under 3 years: FREE
Special Events
Dec. 21, 2019 — Free Third Saturday. FREE admission to the Museums
Dec. 26, at 6 p.m. — Kwanzaa Celebration 2019.
The museums are partnering with Women for Progress of MS, Inc., for a Kwanzaa celebration.
— Julianne G. Crane
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The Civil Rights Museum is outstanding and heart wrenching. It takes a standard overview of civil rights and moves it into the very personal and very real. Strongly suggest that you park the car RV somewhere else and take a car. The roads with pot holes are even challenging for a car! There is a state campground in the Jackson area right on the Mississippi River that is a bit out of the way, rustic but very scenic. It floods often, the showers and restroom are on stilts, so check condition before booking or attempting to drive in. We easily camped with a 36 ft motorhome but did need to dodge branches.
Thank you for your first hand information on the nearby State Park.