A $2.5 million grant will go toward highlighting the role of religion in Mississippi’s history and culture.
Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded the funds to the Foundation for Mississippi History to support and promote programs, activities, and projects by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History focused on how faith has shaped the Magnolia State.
The grant was made available through Lilly Endowment’s Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative, a nationwide effort to help museums and other related facilities improve the public’s understanding of religion. This is Lilly Endowment’s second grant to the foundation, as a $2.5 million award in December 2022 launched the state of Mississippi’s work to expand religious initiatives.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s Religion Initiative has three goals: attract more visitors to the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, make archival holdings related to religion more accessible to the public, and make improvements to historic sites related to religion. Recent funding from the Lilly Endowment has aided in this campaign.
As part of the initiative, archivists process and digitize significant manuscript collections related to religion, making the materials more available to scholars, historians, and the public.
“Support from Lilly Endowment has been transformative,” MDAH director Katie Blount said. “The Lilly Endowment funding has helped us elevate our work at MDAH and expand our audience through outreach to church groups and deep dives into archival resources related to religion.”
With the previous grant, the Two Mississippi Museums have been able to incorporate new religious narratives and launch visitor outreach initiatives tailored to faith-based groups. The grant has also funded the annual Religion in Mississippi History Research Fellowship, which is awarded to a graduate student with an interest in conducting primary source research in the state’s archival materials concerning religious history.
With new dollars rolling in, those initiatives will continue, and work will expand to the Vicksburg Civil War Visitor Center, which is slated to open in 2028. The grant funding will cover costs associated with telling the story of the role of religion in the Civil War, along with supporting admission, event rentals, and tours for religious groups.
Lilly Endowment funds will also go toward a $750,000 grant to the General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Mississippi to help support the restoration of the chapel building at Natchez College, which was established by an effort of the Baptist State Missionary Convention. The school became a junior college in the 1960s and closed in 1989.
The site was also where Natchez Seminary was founded by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York in 1877. The school relocated to Mississippi’s capital city in 1882 and grew to become Jackson State University.
“Members of the General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Mississippi are thrilled that Lilly Endowment recognizes the collaborative work of the Foundation for Mississippi History, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and the Baptist Convention in preserving the places and presenting the stories of Mississippi’s religious communities,” Rev. Reginald Buckley, president of the General Missionary Baptist State Convention, said.
“How faith impacts culture is sometimes easily noticed but mostly nuanced. This award will allow us to complete the restoration of the historic Huddleston Chapel at Natchez College, but will also bring light to a religious tradition that built institutions of learning and hope in the face of tremendous odds.”
According to the Pew Research Center, around 77% of Mississippians identify as Christian, while no other major religion claims more than 1% of the state’s population. Within the Christian faith, 42% of Mississippians identify as evangelical protestant and 20% are historically Black protestant. Around 5% claim catholicism.