MDAH launches family genealogy fellowships

Fellowships are a part of a year-long initiative in 2022 to expand understanding of the Great Migration. 

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) announced that they will be offering fellowships to individuals who want to research their family’s connection to Mississippi at the state archives, gathering oral histories, and holding a series of public programs on genealogy, preservation of important papers and images, and the history of the Great Migration.

MDAH will award fellowships up to $2,000 and are a part of a year-long initiative in 2022 to expand understanding of the Great Migration and its wide impact. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) and the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) are working together on the year-long initiative.

“The Great Migration is the largest internal migration of people in U.S. history. Many families who left Mississippi still feel a close connection to our state. We’re glad to be able to help them come back to Mississippi and research their roots,” said MDAH director Katie Blount.

In April of 2022, the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) will open the exhibition, A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration. The exhibit will embark on a nationwide tour to Baltimore, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles.

The exhibition will explore the impact of the Great Migration on the social and cultural life of the United States through commissioned works by twelve acclaimed artists.

“We asked this group of talented artists to join us on this journey over a year ago, during a pandemic, to investigate their connections to the South. The process has been illuminating, and we are so thankful for their excitement and commitment to this project during such a trying time. As each project has developed over the last year, informed by research, explorations, and dialogue, it has become clear that our show will primarily underscore reflections on family. It will posit migration as both a historical and political consequence, but also as a choice for reclaiming one’s agency. The works examine individual and familial stories of perseverance, self-determination, and self-reliance through a variety of expressions,” said co-curators Ryan N. Dennis, MMA Chief Curator and Artistic Director of the Museum’s Center for Art and Public Exchange, and Jessica Bell Brown,BMA Associate Curator of Contemporary Art.