'A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration' Plans Closing Weekend Activities

"A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration," the acclaimed traveling exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art, its inaugural venue, closes Sunday, September 11, 2022.

Featuring newly commissioned works across media by 12 influential artists, the exhibition explores the profound impact of the Great Migration on the social and cultural life of the United States from historical and personal perspectives. Artists included are Akea Brionne, Mark Bradford, Zoë Charlton, Larry W. Cook, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates Jr., Allison Janae Hamilton, Leslie Hewitt, Steffani Jemison, Robert Pruitt, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The exhibition will travel to the Baltimore Museum of Art where it will be on view from October 30, 2022, through January 29, 2023.

The Museum has planned a stellar roster of programming, described below, for closing weekend (September 8 – 11). The Museum will follow all current CDC guidelines. Events will all take place at the Mississippi Museum of Art, 380 South Lamar Street, Downtown Jackson, unless otherwise noted.

Thursday, September 8, 6:30 PM, Galloway United Methodist Church
Medgar Wiley Evers Lecture | Isabel Wilkerson
Tickets are free, but registration is required. Register here.
The Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) present the 2022 Medgar Wiley Evers Lecture featuring Pulitzer Prize winner and National Humanities Medalist Isabel Wilkerson. Wilkerson, who authored the New York Times bestseller The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, will reflect on how the Great Migration and its connection to Mississippi continues to shape the American narrative.

In A Warmth of Other Suns, Wilkerson offers a rich and nuanced form of storytelling that shares why more than six million Black Americans left the South between 1915-1970 during the Great Migration. This mass movement transformed every aspect of Black life, both in rural towns and urban metropolises. In the search for safety, better pay, and more freedom, Wilkerson delves into stories of families based in the American South, unveiling shared sacrifices and hopes for the future.

After the lecture, attendees will have the opportunity to purchase books featuring autographed bookplates designed for the Evers Lecture and "A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration."

Friday, September 9, 11:30 AM
Gallery Talk | Leslie Hewitt
Free with exhibition admission
Join "A Movement in Every Direction" artist Leslie Hewitt in the galleries as she shares more about her three assemblage sculptures on view that explore ideas of memory and materiality.

Saturday, September 10, 7:00 PM
Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration
$25 per person; tickets available here
Following sold out engagements at Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center, jazz pianist, composer, and artist Jason Moran and mezzo-soprano and composer Alicia Hall Moran create a special rendition of their acclaimed “Two Wings” performance for the Mississippi Museum of Art. Drawing upon their own family lore and stories of the Great Migration, both harrowing and inspiring, they weave together music from rhythm and blues to gospel, classical to Broadway, work songs to rock, and more.

In this performance, words and music come together to tell the Great Migration story from the book Midnight Without a Moon, set in the Mississippi summer of 1955. Acclaimed Mississippi author Linda Williams Jackson joins the performers on stage. This performance shares a story of two accounts – those who decided to leave the South, and those who decided to stay – shining a light on the how the complexity of the movement impacted the people and music of America.

A reception and book signing for Midnight Without a Moon will follow the performance.

Sunday, September 11, 2:00 PM
Public Tour
Free
Join our trained gallery educators for a FREE tour of "A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration." Each tour is discussion-based and will provide participants the opportunity to learn about select works of art, and engage with exhibition themes of storytelling, family, land, and self-determination.