Dr. Rolando Herts (center left), MS Delta NHA Executive Director, accepting the MS Heritage Trust Trustees Award for Organizational Achievement. Carrie A. Mardorf (center right), Superintendent of Vicksburg National Military Park, accepting the Heritage Award of Excellence in Archeology
The MS Delta National Heritage Area (MS Delta NHA) was honored with a 2024 Heritage Award from the Mississippi Heritage Trust at the recent Listen Up! Historic Preservation Conference in Vicksburg.
MS Delta NHA received the Trustees Award for Organizational Achievement. This prestigious award “recognizes outstanding achievement in preservation activities by a group, business, neighborhood, or other organization” according to the Mississippi Heritage Trust.
“We are proud to present the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area with the 2024 Trustees Heritage Award for Organizational Achievement,” said Lolly Barnes, Executive Director of Mississippi Heritage Trust. “Whether it is a bricks and mortar project to save a treasured landmark like the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church from being lost to time, innovative interpretive programs of StoryWorks to bring history to life or the convening of like-minded partners to envision the future of Civil Rights Heritage Tourism, Dr. Rolando Herts and his talented team are always ready to lend time and talent to help their diverse group of stakeholders.”
Lolly Barnes (left) congratulating Dr. Rolando Herts and the MS Delta NHA
Dr. Rolando Herts, Executive Director of the MS Delta NHA, accepted the award with team members Wayne Dowdy and Robertson Scholars Kiestin Jackson, Jessica Johnson, and Annelise Bowers from UNC Chapel Hill.
“The Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area is honored to receive the Trustees Heritage Award for Organizational Achievement,” said Dr. Herts. “National Heritage Areas might be perceived as an invisible glue that holds cultural heritage ecosystems together in regions throughout the country. Receiving recognitions like this help to make that glue more tangible, more real, which makes us ever more visible to the wonderful communities of hope that we serve.”
Wayne Dowdy (left) and Dr. Rolando Herts (right) with MS Delta NHA board member Malika Polk-Lee (center), Executive Director of the BB King Museum
The MS Delta NHA received the award for demonstrating achievements in three areas: (1) providing community cultural heritage grants to support historic preservation, (2) strengthening funding relationships with national partners like the National Park Service, and (3) strengthening preservation and tourism through cultural heritage interpretation. The award recognizes the MS Delta NHA’s regional impacts, as well as relationships cultivated with many organizations and community leaders regionally and nationally.
Dr. Herts also was invited to facilitate the panel discussion “Mississippi’s African American Heritage Is In Good Hands.” The panel highlighted successful cultural heritage development programs in Mississippi’s three National Heritage Areas: the Delta, the Gulf Coast, and the Hills.
Panelists included Malika Polk-Lee, Executive Director of the B.B. King Museum in Indianola; Jenna Welch, Producing Artistic Director of StoryWorks Theater in Clarksdale; Reverend Darryl Johnson, Co-Founder of the Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History; Anne McMillion, founder of Jabali Preservation Inc. in Moss Point; and Yaphet Smith President of the Keysmith Foundation and Annalise Flynn, Independent Curator both representing the L.V. Hull House in Kosciusko.
National Heritage Areas were not the only branch of the National Park Service represented at the Listen Up conference. Vicksburg National Military Park received the Heritage Award of Excellence in Archeology for their team’s work on the Vicksburg National Cemetery burial recovery. In addition to receiving an award, they presented on cemetery preservation methods and on illuminating stories of fallen Black Civil War soldiers.
African American heritage panelists listen to Reverend Darryl Johnson present about the Mound Bayou Museum.
Through its Cultural Heritage Grant Program funded by the National Park Service, the MS Delta NHA has uplifted overlooked places and undertold parts of the region’s history. MS Delta NHA grants have supported preserving historic landmarks and community stories like the Hawkins vs. Town of Shaw civil rights case for equitable municipal services in Shaw.
MS Delta NHA also has hosted virtual grant workshops in collaboration with the National Park Service, guiding attendees through the federal grant proposal writing process. As a result, The Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, a Blues heritage site that was named to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 11 Most Endangered list in 2021, has been awarded over $1.2 million from the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Grant Program. MS Delta NHA wrote letters of support for these grants.
The MS Delta NHA also was recognized for its devotion to empowering residents to tell their community stories. This work has been reflected in the 2022 MS Delta Civil Rights Archive Digital Storytelling Project created in partnership with the Robertson Scholars Leadership Program at Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill, as well as the 2024 MS Delta Cultural Heritage Ambassadors Program, created in partnership with StoryWorks Theater, the National Park Service, the Walton Family Foundation, and others.
The MS Delta NHA includes 18 counties that contain land located in the alluvial floodplain of the Mississippi Delta: Bolivar, Carroll, Coahoma, DeSoto, Holmes, Humphreys, Issaquena, Leflore, Panola, Quitman, Sharkey, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tunica, Warren, Washington, and Yazoo. The MS Delta NHA was designated by U.S. Congress in 2009 and is governed by a board of directors representing agencies and organizations defined in the congressional legislation. More information about the MS Delta NHA, including the complete approved management plan, is available at www.msdeltaheritage.com.
The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the MS Delta NHA and the National Endowment for the Humanities “Most Southern Place on Earth” workshops. For more information, visit http://deltacenterdsu.com/.
