If you’d like to host the More Perfect Union: Mississippi Founders exhibit, contact John Spann at jspann@mhc.state.ms.us
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The National Endowment for the Humanities, in partnership with State Humanities Councils around the country, launched a special initiative called A More Perfect Union: Understanding Our Roots in the Declaration of Independence. The project is designed to help our fellow citizens celebrate the rich legacy of ideas and ideals at the core of our democracy. Each of the humanities councils and interim partners received $50,000 to design scholar-led programs that encourage engagement, collective reflection, and community discussion of the rights and responsibilities of active citizenship.
The Mississippi Humanities Council created a traveling exhibit call “A More Perfect Union: Mississippi Founders.” This project specifically highlights Ida B. Wells-Barnett, John Roy Lynch, Thomas W. Stringer, Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine, Lawrence Guyot, Aaron Henry, Unita Blackwell, Clarie Collins Harvey, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, and Vernon Dahmer. These individuals put their lives on the line, and some paid the ultimate sacrifice in striving for a true democracy in America. Through the exhibit, we dare to say that these individuals are the founders of Mississippi, the founders of a democracy that dared to say that all men are created equal and uplifts the ideals of the American constitution. These individuals were American patriots and should be revered in the same light as Patrick Henry and Alexander Hamilton.
The American value of freedom was also discussed in communities across Mississippi during the Ideas on Tap “Freedom Tour.” This program, which consisted of a three-part Ideas on Tap discussion series, explored questions like what does freedom mean to you? and who is free in America? while uplifting the ways in which freedom is “unique to all of us.” Traveling to three prominent cities–Natchez, Jackson, and Columbus–the Freedom Tour invited Mississippians of all backgrounds to engage in meaningful public discussion on the nuances of freedom through various lenses of identity and socio-economic location. Made up of local historians, civil rights organizers and activists, members of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), immigrants, lawyers and scholars; this diverse group provided historical and political context for understanding freedom while demonstrating how different groups define it differently based on their experiences living in Mississippi.
A More Perfect Union can be used as a comprehensive educational tool that offers a unique opportunity for teachers to help students understand and engage with American history, democracy, and civic life. The program’s focus on Mississippi provides teachers with a platform to teach about a critical moment in the country’s history, and the important lessons that can be learned from it. The Mississippi Humanities Council created these interstitial videos with the help of Mississippi Public Broadcasting and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
If you’d like to host the More Perfect Union: Mississippi Founders exhibit, contact John Spann at jspann@mhc.state.ms.us