Explore America and discover people, places, art, and history that connect to Mississippi in the Smithsonian’s collections, held in trust for the American people. Mississippi is the birthplace of Delta Blues. Emerging out of spirituals and works songs sung by enslaved African Americans, generations of musicians from the Magnolia State have helped pioneer blues music and usher it into the mainstream. Writers William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Eudora Welty have all made significant contributions to American literature, especially within the Southern Gothic genre.
Mississippi was a key battleground in the struggle for Black civil rights. In 1954, World War II veteran Medgar Evers became field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP. He led boycotts, voter-registration activities, and pushed for justice for Emmet Till. His activism made him and his family targets. Changemaker Fannie Lou Hamer helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer to register voters, and James Meredith started the March Against Fear to call attention to voter discrimination in the South.
In science and innovation, Operation Moonwatch of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory organized ordinary citizens to help track and photograph artificial Earth satellites using telescopes. Dr. James Hardy performed the first human lung transplant and the world’s first cardiac transplant using a chimpanzee heart. The Teddy Bear was invented by Morris Michtom after President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear during a hunting trip led by Holt Collier. Innovative puppeteer Jim Henson, born in Greenville, Miss., noted Kermit the Frog's birthplace as Leland, Miss., where there is a museum in his honor.