2026 Annual Meeting Agenda

Mississippi Historical Society
March 5-6, 2026
Meridian, MS

Thursday, March 5

All sessions are at the Riley Center and the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience. Early registration is $60 for MHS members and $95 for non-members. Registration after Friday, February 28, 2025, is $85 for MHS members and $120 for nonmembers.

10:30 a.m.  Registration

11:00 a.m.  Annual Business Meeting 

12:00 p.m.  Opening Session and Luncheon 

  • Presiding: Roscoe Barnes III, President, Mississippi Historical Society
  • Welcome: Katie Blount, Director, Mississippi Department of Archives and History
  • Keynote Speaker: Jere Nash, Author, Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862-1877

2:30 p.m.  Session I – Pursuing Freedom During Jim Crow: Lessons from Holmes County

  • Diane Feldman, Author, Borrowed Land, Stolen Labor, and the Holy Spirit: The Struggle for Power and Equality in Holmes County, Mississippi

3:15 p.m.  Break

3:30 p.m.  Session II – Visit the MAX (The Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience)

5:00 p.m.  President's Happy Hour

6:00 p.m.  Banquet with Book of the Year Award Winner

  • Presiding: Keena Graham, Vice President, Mississippi Historical Society
  • M.J. O’Brien, Author, Thee Tougaloo Nine: The Jackson Library Sit-In at the Crossroads of Civil War and Civil Rights

Friday, March 6

9:00 a.m.  Session III – Marquis de Lafayette in Mississippi

  • Brother Rogers, Historian (retired), Mississippi Department of Archives and History

10:15 a.m.  Break

10:30 a.m.  Session IV – The Contested Expansion of Democracy in Mississippi: Jim Crow and the American Experiment

  • Robby Luckett, Director, Margaret Walker Center

12:30 p.m.  Awards Luncheon 

  • Presiding: Roscoe Barnes III, President, Mississippi Historical Society
  • Presentation of Awards
    • Lifetime Achievement
    • Excellence in History Award
    • Outstanding Local Historical Society Award
    • Teacher of the Year Award
    • Awards of Merit