This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Exhibit Firms Chosen for Museums
The Department of Archives and History continues to move forward with plans to design the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History, gather artifacts, develop exhibits, and construct the museums and museum complex.
In December, following a nationwide search and interviews with the top candidates, exhibit design teams for the museums were chosen. Hilferty & Associates will design the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, and Design Minds will design the Museum of Mississippi History. Based in Athens, Ohio, Hilferty & Associates has more than forty years of experience in interpretive planning and design. The firm has planned and designed exhibitions for large institutions such as the National Museum of the American Indian and the New York State Museum. Hilferty has developed exhibits on the Chickasaw Trail of Tears, the African Slave Trade, the Great Migration, and the Emancipation Proclamation. Hilferty designed Victory to Freedom, the inaugural exhibit for the National Afro-American Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum at the 18th & Vine Cultural Center in Kansas City.
Hilferty will work with Mo-nadnock Media of Sunderland, Massachusetts, for the audiovisual components of the Civil Rights Museum. Monadnock’s credentials include media installations for the Albany Civil Rights Museum and the August Wilson Center for African American Culture.
Hilferty has engaged Dr. John Fleming as a special consultant for the Civil Rights Museum project. Hilferty collaborated with Fleming when he served as director for the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio.
Since then Fleming has served as director for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. Recently he has consulted on several civil rights museums, including ones in Birmingham and Atlanta. Prior to his museum work Fleming served on the United States Civil Rights Commission.
Based in Fairfax, Virginia, Design Minds was founded in 1998. They have planned and designed exhibitions for many institutions with large collections of artifacts, such as the West Virginia Department of Culture and History, Indepen-
dence Hall, and the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center in Alliance, Nebraska. Design Minds has developed exhibits for the U.S. Army Basic Combat Training Museum, Dwight
D.	Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, George C. Marshall Museum, and National Archives and Records Administration.
Design Minds will work with Northern Light Productions for the multimedia components of the Museum of Mississippi History. Northern Light has produced interactive exhibits and video for the Louisiana State
Museum, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Oklahoma Heritage Museum, and Vicksburg National Military Park.
Design Minds has engaged PPI Consulting and Available Light as the audiovisual/systems and lighting consultants respectively. PPI Consulting’s credentials include audiovisual installations for the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Available Light’s credentials include lighting designs for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the New England Aquarium, and
the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
Hilferty and Design Minds began work on schematic designs in December 2011. In early 2012a series of community meetings will be held around the state to invite public input on the exhibits of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. Fifteen community meetings were held statewide in 2005 to gather input for the Museum of Mississippi History.
The Department of Archives and History holds the world’s finest collection of artifacts related to Mississippi, but since
2005 these have been in storage and inaccessible to the public. These treasured objects will be showcased in the new museums. The Museum of Mississippi History will tell the story of the state from prehistory through the current day. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum will focus on the period 1945-70 and tell the story of the struggle for equal rights and fair treatment under the law.
The two museums will be administered by MDAH and will be constructed side by side on state-owned land next to the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in downtown Jackson. Total cost of the two museums is expected to top $70 million, with a significant amount of the funding for exhibits coming from private sources.
The Mississippi Development Authority has projected that the two museums will draw
200,000	visitors each year and have an annual economic impact of nearly $19 million. The two museums will share collection storage and conservation areas, classroom and auditorium space, a parking garage, and store. Savings gained by the shared facilities total $7.78 million. In addition, operating the museums together will produce significant ongoing savings.
Construction of the two museums, parking garage, and museum complex is scheduled to begin in 2013 and take three years. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History are scheduled to open in 2017 as the centerpiece of the state’s bicentennial celebration. The new museums—alongside the restored Old Capitol Museum and the William F. Winter Archives and History Building—will form the heart of a state history center that will serve as a gateway to heritage tourism and attract visitors from across the nation and the world.
Rendering showing the location of the William F. Winter Archives and History Building (at right), Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (center), and Museum of Mississippi History. Architects have not designed the civil rights museum building yet; this graphic only shows the structure’s location.