Vicksburg National Military Park wins Heritage Award for Excellence in Archaeology.

Vicksburg National Military Park received the Heritage Award of Excellence in Archaeology 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.

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 has also 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 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 the 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 .