A once in a lifetime opportunity awaits you inside the Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center. Located a stone's throw from the State Capitol building, it's just within walking distance of principal businesses and attractions in downtown Jackson. Through art, artifacts, and photography, the work, lifestyle, and artistic contributions of African Americans are celebrated, evoking a greater understanding of the African-American experience in the Deep South.
The museum is housed in the former Smith Robertson School, the first public school built for African Americans in Jackson. The school opened in 1894 and served the African-American community until 1971. The original building was a two-story wood structure that burned in 1909. A brick structure was erected by a local African-American contractor to replace the school that same year. In 1929, the prominent architectural firm Hull and Mulvaney enlarged the building and enhanced it with its Art Deco facade. The school was named for Mr. Smith Robertson, who was born a slave in Fayette, Alabama, in 1847. After the Civil War, he migrated to Jackson where he operated a successful barbering business. He was also in local politics and became the first African-American Alderman in the City of Jackson.
One of the most notable graduates of Smith Robertson School is internationally known writer and 1925 graduate Richard Wright. Though he spent only a few years of his life in Mississippi, those years would play a key role in his two most important works: Native Son, a novel, and his autobiography, Black Boy.
Richard Wright
The school closed in 1971 because of integration and was abandoned. Concerned citizens within the community wanted to stop the building from being torn down. Dr. Jessie Mosley and Dr. Alferdteen Harrison organized a petition to save the school. The museum opened in 1984. Dr. Jessie Mosley was the museum's first director and was eventually named "Director Emeritus."
Dr. Jessie B. Mosley
Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center is dedicated to increasing public understanding and awareness of the historical experience and cultural expressions of people of African descent. Artifacts highlight the contributions of black Mississippians through struggle and achievement, as seen in exhibits such as From Slavery to America, 1670-1864 and in the Hall of Fame, which includes personalities from the state who are pioneers in their respective positions. Robert Clark, elected in 1967, was the first African American elected to serve in the Mississippi Legislature since 1894. Unita Blackwell was the first African-American woman elected as mayor of a city in the State of Mississippi. Reuben Anderson became the first African American to serve on the Mississippi Supreme Court, and the Honorable Harvey Johnson, Jr., was elected in 1997 as the first African-American mayor of Jackson, the state's capital and largest city.
The museum also houses on a permanent basis the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Services organized exhibition, Field to Factory: The Afro-American Migration, 1915-1940. This exhibition interprets African Americans moving in great numbers from the rural South to the urban North. The larger version of this exhibition is housed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Other permanent exhibitions include the History of Smith Robertson School, works from the Visual Collection, works from the Master Collection, Treasures of Africa, HistoricFarish Street District (1910-1970), African-American Lifestyle in Mississippi, Mississippi Negro Scholars, Mississippi Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Mississippi African-American Folk Art, Civil Rights Gallery (Jackson, Mississippi, Movement), and Mississippi Black Doctors Gallery.
Exhibition at Smith Robertson Museum
& Cultural Center
Mound Bayou: The Promise Land – 1887- 2010
Mound Bayou is known as the “Jewel of
the Delta.”It was founded in 1817 and incorporated as a town in 1898.The town
of Mound Bayou is .9 square miles and originally consisted of 840-acres,
purchased at $ 7 an acre.
By percentage, its 98.4 percent
African-American majority population is one of the largest of any community in
the United States.
Mound Bayou was founded in conjunction
with the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, which was laying track through
the area.The Town founders were trying
to escape post-Reconstruction violence and repression in the South by
establishing their own community.
The founding of Mound Bayou was led by
Isaiah Montgomery and his cousin Benjamin T. Green, both former slaves of
Joseph E. Davis (Jefferson Davis’ brother).Both Montgomery and Green had high hopes for Blacks even before the
Civil War.Having been raised on the
philosophical conversations of Joseph Davis and his father (Benjamin T.
Montgomery, Isaiah shared their wish for a “community of cooperation.”It was his conviction, however, that utopia
could not be built by bond “servants” as Davis believed, nor by tenant farmers
as his father had hoped.Rather, he
would pursue his dreams of achievement, pride, and independence for his race in
an all-black colony of autonomous landowners who farmed on their own account.
The
City of Jackson’s Department of Human Cultural
Services and SmithRobertsonMuseum
and CulturalCenter
present Mound Bayou: The PromiseLand
- 1887-2010 which is the first comprehensive photographic exhibition on
life after Emancipation in the town of Mound Bayou,
Mississippi.
The exhibition is open to the public NOW through June 30, 2010.
Mound Bayou: The PromiseLand
- 1887-2010 showcases historic and
contemporary accounts of struggle and prosperity through more than 80
photographs spanning 113 years of pain and triumph post-slavery.
Exhibition dates: March 22 – June 30, 2010, for more
information call, 601.960.1457 – Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.;
Saturday – 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
