$2.5M grant will fund study of religion in state and restore historic black church

Ed Inman
·2 min read
Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and U.S. Representative from Mississippi’s Second Congressional District Mike Espy was among the assembled guests announcing details of a $2.5 million Lilly Endowment Grant Wednesday. Joining him (in rear from left) were Espy’s brother Tom Espy, New Horizon Church International Pastor Ronnie Crudup, Mississippi Department of Archives and History Board President Spence Flatgard, MDAH Board Member T. J. Taylor, Natchez Alderwoman Valencia Hall, Galloway United Methodist Church Pastor Cary Stockett, Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson, Natchez Alderwoman Sarah Carter Smith, and MDAH Director Katie Blount.

A $2.5 million grant, announced by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History on Wednesday, will fund a study to help officials better understand the role of religion in history and culture.

The grant was awarded from the Lilly Endowment Inc., an Indiana-based philanthropic foundation designed to support causes of community development, education and religion throughout the United States.

The grant, presented to the Foundation for Mississippi History, is “a perfect match” for the state said MDAH Board President Spence Flatgard.

Flatgard, who welcomed guests and officials attending the announcement Wednesday at the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on North Street, said, “We are the most religious state in the country.”

A key component of the grant will provide $800,000 to allow free admission and tours of the Two Museums for faith-affiliated communities beginning this summer, said MDAH Director Katie Blount.

Additional funds will be used to improve access to the agency’s extensive collections related to religion in Mississippi.

“We are grateful to Lilly Foundation for this major support. The foundation’s generosity will help more Mississippians experience these museums,” Blount said.

A second component of the grant will provide $750,000 for extensive renovations at the historic T.J. Huddleston Memorial Chapel at Natchez College, a historically black college that operated from 1884 until 1989.

“This is tremendous,” said former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and U.S. Representative from Mississippi’s Second Congressional District Mike Espy. Huddleston, who was Espy’s maternal grandfather, founded Afro-American Sons and Daughters, a turn-of-the-century organization providing insurance and economic development opportunities for Mississippi’s black citizens.

Huddleston also opened a hospital in Yazoo City in 1924 that operated until 1975, and he was the editor of a newspaper called Century Voice, Espy said. The hospital was still standing until last November when a fire caused major structural damage, Espy said.

A third component of the grant will provide $36,200 for MDAH to conduct an archeological study, create a footprint, and provide for signage at the site of Mississippi’s first Methodist Church, located on the grounds of the historic Jefferson College in Washington County.

The church served as the site where Mississippi’s first state Constitution was drafted in 1817, Blount said.Eight buildings still remain at Jefferson College, which is now owned by MDAH. Long-term plans for the campus call for the agency to institute a historic preservation field school in conjunction with Mississippi State University.

MDAH is one of 16 organizations nationwide receiving grants through the latest initiative of the Lilly Endowment’s Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative that was begun in 2019.

The endowment was created in 1937 by J. K. Lilly and his sons Eli Lilly and J. K. Lilly Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: $2.5M grant will fund study of religion in MS, restore black church