Promise and Peril, 1903–1927

“We Stood firm to the union when secession Swept as an avalanche over the state. For this cause alone we have been treated as savages instead of freeman by the rebel authorities.”

Newton Knight, Petition to Governor William Sharkey, July 15, 1865

Newton Knight was born in 1837 near the Leaf River in Jones County, Mississippi, a region romantically described in 1841 by the historian J.F.H. Claiborne as a “land of milk and honey.” The landscape was dominated by virgin longleaf pines. Wolves and panthers still roamed the land.

Lucy Somerville Howorth once described herself as a lawyer, politician, and feminist. She believed that girls and women should have the same access to college, a career, and professional promotions as society offered to boys and men. It really was not a radical idea in her day, but many women were afraid to be called a “feminist.” Not Lucy, who once said, “I glory in being a feminist.”

United States Senator John Sharp Williams, of Yazoo County, Mississippi, launched his political career in 1892, when he defeated a Populist opponent in his congressional district and entered the United States House of Representatives the following year. The Mississippi Democrat won re-election to Congress seven times before securing a seat in the United States Senate for a six-year term that began in March 1911. He had no opposition in winning a second Senate term and decided to retire when it ended in March 1923.

Any reference to art in Mississippi and the South since the early part of the 20th century would not be complete without Marie Hull. Her art and life as a painter and teacher have influenced hundreds of young artists to make their way in art.

From the 1975 Marie Hull Exhibit brochure

Marie Atkinson made the discovery at the age of twenty, that she “wanted to paint more than anything else.”

Ask people to define “geography,” and most of them will initially say it is location — where a place is. The “where” is certainly central to geography, and with tools such as maps and global positioning technology, geography is the subject best equipped to address a question about location. However, a simple exercise will illustrate that geography is much more than just location.

The service of African Americans with the Confederate army during the American Civil War has long intrigued historians and Civil War buffs. Were these men soldiers or servants? Did they get shot? Why did they serve, and what was the nature of the relationship between Bblack servants and their White masters in uniform? The answers to these questions may never be completely understood, but one thing is clear from a variety of sources: African Americans were an integral part of the Confederate war effort.