It’s been a long time since our last news roundup, and even longer since I undertook one. I’ve been out of town a lot the last couple of months, so I fear this roundup won’t approach comprehensiveness and will be… Read More ›
African American History
“When did the focus change from the Farish Street Historic District?”
Rosalind McCoy Sibley asked that question, and it needs an answer (Farish Street-A Slightly Different Perspective, Jackson Advocate, 2015). I do not have it, and apparently, neither does any one else who has followed the “miscalculated missteps” of the project,… Read More ›
Labor Day 2016
On this Labor Day, we stop to consider an interesting footnote to the construction of Mississippi’s New Capitol, which I stumbled on by browsing around the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America database of historic newspapers. It seems that soon after construction… Read More ›
Belzoni Cemetery and its Concrete Grave Markers
Up on the north side of Belzoni, near the Varsity Drive-In, is the Green Grove M.B. Church, where the funeral of civil rights leader George Lee was held in 1955. As I was taking the above pictures, I looked across… Read More ›
Bleak House Cemetery and its Concrete Grave Markers
A couple of weeks ago in the post about outdoor concrete baptistries, “Washed in the Water,” I mentioned that another interesting concrete phenomenon I’ve noticed primarily in African American cemeteries are concrete grave markers. Some are very clearly shaped by… Read More ›
Washed in the Water
Now that summer is upon us, my thoughts turn to two seasons that go along with the warm weather: hurricane season and baptism season. Until well into the 20th century in this Baptist-heavy state, immersion baptisms typically took place in… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 5-23-2016
From Ingomar Mound to Prospect Hill Plantation, from parapets falling to gravestones standing up and “Wade” handwritten on a sill, the MissPres news roundup has got it covered.
Mississippi Streets: Greenville Across the Tracks, 1939
See other Mississippi Streets: 1920s Yazoo City 1910s Vicksburg 1950s New Albany 1960s Meridian 1930s Camp Shelby 1950s Pascagoula 1960s Neshoba County Fair Drew 1937 Tupelo 1936 Vicksburg 1936 1940s Gulfport 1940s Columbus Greenville 1927 Lexington 1939 1910s Meridian 1920s… Read More ›
Mad Mod Delta Tour Report
Today’s post is brought to you by our inveterate architectural tourist, Neel Reid, who also reported on last year’s Mad Mod Eastover tour. ————————————————— It’s easy to overlook Modernist commercial architecture. Coming into a world where cars dictate the layout… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 4-25-2016
From Tupelo to Vicksburg, from Philadelphia to Jackson and down to Natchez, and even over in Arkansas (!) here’s (almost) all the Mississippi preservation news that’s fit to print.
MissPres News Roundup 4-11-2016
Since I spent the weekend grumpily working on taxes, this will be a fairly truncated roundup, but I hope it will catch most of the big stuff. If you know of something I’ve missed, be sure to add it in… Read More ›
Meridian: Traveling with the Green Book in Mississippi
Our next stop in using Victor Green’s The Green Book, assurance of accommodation for the African American traveler from 1936-1967, is Meridian. The year 1939 was the first year Mississippi was listed in the Green Book, with only 6 hotels. … Read More ›
Traveling with The Green Book in Mississippi: First stop, Queen City Hotel in Columbus
Victor H. Green, Editor and Publisher, introduced the Green Book in 1936 as a local publication for the New York City area. “Motoring” for leisure was catching on, but Green, as an African American businessman from New York City, was… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 1-4-2016
Happy New Year to the MissPres community on our first News Roundup of 2016. Some of you may remember that I used to do the News Roundups a few years ago. Doing News Roundups in 2016 is more difficult than… Read More ›
New Deal in Mississippi: Former Old Salem High School and Vocational Building
Old Salem High School and Vocational Building were both constructed by the National Youth Administration for African American students, in the Ashland vicinity, Benton County. Construction was complete by 1941. Photographs taken in 1956 by J. H. Phay can be… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 11-30-2015
How about a quick News Roundup to ease ourselves back into work and life after what I hope was a (take your pick) quiet/relaxing/exciting/adventuresome/food-filled/family-packed Thanksgiving break in which you slept/worked in the yard/cooked/read/ate/watched football/avoided people/shopped on Black Friday/watched football (did… Read More ›
Mississippi Streets: Vicksburg 1936
Who will be the first to identify which street and which building Walker Evans captured in 1936?
MissPres News Roundup 11-9-2015
Let’s get right to a few items of note from the past two weeks in our little rainy, finally fall-like part of the world. Up in Holly Springs, work may finally be on the horizon to stabilize the Carnegie Auditorium on… Read More ›
Newspaper Clippings: Death of an Ancient Black Builder
I can’t claim to have come across this little gem on my own. I found a reference to it in John Hebron Moore’s The Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom in the Old Southwest, and just had to track it down. To… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 10-27-2015
Due to an unexpected power outage this weekend, just as I was beginning to think about putting together an overdue news roundup, this roundup is filling Suzassippi’s usual Tuesday slot. Following up on last month’s exciting announcement about a new… Read More ›
Which Spring Pilgrimage for you?
Whether the weather agrees or not, Spring officially arrives in Mississippi on the day the Natchez Pilgrimage opens, which is this Saturday. Even if you’ve been to one or more of these pilgrimages before, there’s always something new to see,… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 2-16-2015
Our President’s Day special edition roundup covers the state from Natchez to Oxford, from Greenwood to Waveland, cheap standardized homes to expensive standardized homes.
Six Years: Where History Meets Architecture
MissPres will be celebrating its sixth anniversary during 2015. To acknowledge this achievement we will be looking back at some of our earliest posts while sharing thoughts and any developments that have occurred since the post originally debuted. Today’s post is a… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 2-2-2015
Kiss those Kress neon signs good-bye, Meridianites, in a “preservation” project that defies the definition of preservation.
MLK in Jackson, 1963
“The first “legal” civil rights march in the history of Mississippi. It was clear we were going to march come Hell, Blood, or Mississippi — and we did: 6,000 of us.” Question for Jacksonians–what street is this?
National Register 2014: Individual Listings
I know yesterday I promised a post about the buildings that were proposed but not approved for Mississippi Landmark designation, but I’m still working on some background research about that subject, which is more complex than transparent, so instead we’ll… Read More ›
Preservation in Mississippi 