The Making Their Mark project to install historical markers for the AAO legislators across Mississippi, accompanied by community programming, part of Monument Lab’s 2026 Re:Generation Cohort
Virtual Cemetery on Find A Grave – pay virtual visits to the known gravesites of Mississippi’s first Black legislators. Am I missing one? Please let me know.
SR 120 (2025) – Mississippi Senate resolution commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Clinton Massacre
The Clinton Massacre 150th anniversary commemoration events, held September 4-6 2025
Class files for “Radical Courage: Black Legislators in Mississippi’s Reconstruction Legislature,” a course I taught for the Mississippi Governor’s School program in June 2022-2025
Library of Congress authority records
Links to Wikidata pages for each legislator
Collection of legislators’ signatures
This site is a proud supporter of the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science’s Eighth of May Emancipation Celebration program, which often features legislators Robert Gleed and Jesse Freeman Boulden
Recognition
- Mississippi Historical Society – Award of Merit (2025)
- Reference & User Services Association, History Section – Genealogy/History Achievement Award (2021). “The recipient shall be selected for exceptional accomplishment in one or more of the following areas: leadership; service; training; reference; or publication of recent, significant print or digital reference works/projects that offer access to genealogical or historical sources.”
- Popular Culture Association – Allen Ellis Digital Research Award in Popular Culture, honorable mention (2021). “This award recognizes the outstanding contribution of an academic database to the study of Popular Culture and American Culture developed within the past three years.”
Talks & Press
- Video: Presentation at Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s “History is Lunch” program, held at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (Sep 9, 2020) – since this presentation, the site has grown from 120+ to 150+ information pages to cover the years beyond Reconstruction until 1894
- Video: “Cultural Conversations” program for MSU Libraries (Oct 5, 2020)
- Article: “MSU Libraries Documents African American Legislators in Mississippi with Online “Against All Odds” Exhibit” (Dec 8, 2020)
- Video: Against All Odds: Telling the Stories of the First Black Legislators in Mississippi – conversation with Albright descendant Karen Burch, Handy descendant Bianca Ford, and me for the Society of Mississippi Archivists’ Virtual Table Talks program (May 21, 2021)
- Article: Against All Odds in Reviews in Digital Humanities – this site reviewed by Dr. Kimber Thomas of UNC Chapel Hill (June 2021)
- Video: The Recovery of Nineteenth-Century Black Histories – Association for Documentary Editors conference panel in which I participated (July 27, 2021)
- Article: The First Black Legislators in Mississippi – written by me for Mississippi History Now, which provides history articles for K-12 students accompanied by lesson plans created by teachers (Aug 2022)
- Video: Introducing High School Students to Mississippi’s First Black Legislators – presentation for the Society of Mississippi Archivists’ Virtual Table Talks program (Oct 28, 2022)
- Article: Against All Odds in Library Exhibitions Review – this site reviewed by Jacob Lackner of Emory University (Mar 2023)