Civil rights and history
The Two Mississippi Museums, Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home, Smith Robertson Museum, and Farish Street reveal organized resistance, family courage, Black institution-building, state power, and the long consequences of segregation.
Begin downtown
The Museum of Mississippi History places civil-rights history within the state's much longer human record. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum concentrates on the period from 1945 to 1976 while tracing the systems and resistance that came before and after.
Museum of Mississippi History
Indigenous history, European colonization, slavery, war, agriculture, migration, politics, industry, and cultural life establish the forces that shaped modern Mississippi. The broad chronology helps prevent civil-rights history from appearing suddenly in the 1950s.
Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
Eight galleries examine segregation, violence, organizing, legal challenges, local leadership, national attention, and the continuing struggle for equality. The experience includes emotionally intense testimony, objects, images, and accounts of murder and terror.
Shared campus
A lunch or quiet break keeps the second museum from becoming a blur. The central lobby's sculpture, This Little Light of Mine, changes through light and sound as visitors gather; treat it as a place of collective memory rather than a photo checkpoint.
Families and groups
Adults should review current museum guidance, explain that some galleries address racist violence and death, and allow children to step away. A shorter focused visit can be more responsible than forcing completion of every exhibit.
Inside the civil-rights museum
The museum centers people who challenged segregation in Mississippi: local organizers, students, clergy, workers, attorneys, journalists, and families alongside nationally known figures. Read dates and places closely. Jackson's story connects to the Delta, the Gulf Coast, north Mississippi, federal courts, schools, buses, churches, voting drives, and community networks across the state.
A respectful order
| Stop | What it contributes | Visitor posture |
|---|---|---|
| Two Mississippi Museums | Statewide chronology, primary sources, movement history, and the institutional structures surrounding Jackson events. | Allow half a day or more; read before photographing; pause when the material becomes overwhelming. |
| Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home | A family home, an organizing center, and the place where Medgar Evers was assassinated on June 12, 1963. | Follow NPS access instructions, respect the residential neighborhood, and understand Myrlie Evers-Williams as a leader in her own right. |
| Smith Robertson Museum | Black education, art, community institutions, and achievement in a former segregated public school. | Check city hours and give the museum its own block rather than treating it as an appendix to the larger state museums. |
| Farish Street | Black business, music, religion, medicine, entertainment, residence, and the visible effects of urban change. | Observe from public streets, support active businesses, and avoid reducing present-day conditions to picturesque decay. |
Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home
Medgar Evers served as the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, investigating racial violence, supporting school desegregation and voting-rights work, and organizing boycotts and local chapters. The family chose a house designed with security in mind. Evers was assassinated in the driveway in 1963. Myrlie Evers-Williams continued the work as an activist, author, public speaker, and later NAACP chair.
Check National Park Service access →At the Evers home
The house matters because civil-rights work occurred amid family routines, neighborhood relationships, constant risk, and deliberate precautions. Exterior design details, the carport, children's rooms, furniture, and the driveway are not theatrical props. They show what white supremacist threats imposed on daily life.
Medgar Evers's death should not eclipse his years of organizing or Myrlie Evers-Williams's decades of leadership. Read about the investigations he pursued, the people and chapters he supported, and the legal and political work that continued after 1963. The National Park Service interprets the home within that fuller history.
The monument sits in a residential neighborhood. Park only where directed, keep private property clear, avoid loud group staging, and follow ranger instructions. If interior access is unavailable, use official digital material rather than improvising access or treating the exterior as a quick photo stop.
Smith Robertson Museum
Smith Robertson School opened in the late nineteenth century as Jackson's first public school for African American children. The building now houses a museum and cultural center devoted to African American history and art. Its exhibits widen the visit from national movement milestones to education, work, creativity, faith, family, and community life.
Farish Street
Farish Street was a center of Black-owned businesses, professional offices, churches, entertainment, and neighborhood life during segregation. Music venues and restaurants are part of that history, but so are doctors, funeral homes, banks, newspapers, civic organizations, and families. Preservation efforts, demolitions, vacancies, and active businesses now coexist along the corridor.
Farish Street context
Institutions
Religious congregations, stores, professional offices, entertainment venues, and service businesses created a corridor where Black Jacksonians could build institutions despite exclusion elsewhere.
Music
Blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, and later performance traditions animate Farish Street's memory. Present-day music venues can continue that energy, but no single evening reconstructs the district's past.
Preservation
Urban renewal, highway construction, suburbanization, financing barriers, speculative projects, demolition, and uneven reinvestment all affected the district. Avoid simple stories of decline that erase policy and power.
Photography
Photograph architecture from legal public space, avoid intruding on worship or private life, and support open businesses. A respectful visit values the people and institutions still present.
Between the stops
The history is emotionally demanding. A short walk near the museum campus, lunch away from the galleries, or a quiet drive through the city can create room to process what you have read. A pause is not a diversion from the subject; it helps keep the next site from becoming another item crossed off a list.
If you have one day
Arrive at the Two Mississippi Museums when they open and spend the morning across both institutions. Take a real lunch break. Continue to the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home only with confirmed National Park Service access. Choose Smith Robertson for a final museum block or Farish Street for contextual architecture and an early dinner; do not squeeze both into the last hour. If the museums are closed, use official digital collections and reschedule rather than substituting a drive-by tour.
See the two-night Jackson itineraryOfficial resources
Hours, tours, exhibitions, preservation work, and access conditions change. These official sources also provide deeper historical material before and after the visit.
Jackson history questions
Allow at least half a day for a first visit, and more if you read exhibits closely. The Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum share a building, but neither is a corridor to the other. Check current hours, admission, accessibility, and gallery notices with the museums.
The site is a national monument administered by the National Park Service. Interior access, ranger tours, group arrangements, parking instructions, and closures can change. Use the official NPS page before driving to the Elraine subdivision.
The museum occupies the former Smith Robertson School, Jackson's first public school built for African American children. Its exhibitions interpret Black life and achievement in Mississippi, and the building itself is part of that history. Confirm current city hours before visiting.
Farish Street is a historic Black business, cultural, religious, and residential corridor whose buildings and present conditions reflect both achievement and disinvestment. Visit with historical context, support businesses that are open, and do not expect a fully restored museum district.
