The MDNHA recently installed a series of orientation exhibit banners at the four state welcome centers located in the region. This is another key action item from the MDNHA Management Plan that has now been completed.
The exhibits consist of two banners that give visitors general information about the MDNHA. The first banner highlights the MDNHA’s five cultural heritage themes:
1. The MS River and the Land It Embraces, which illuminates how the Mississippi Delta was formed, Native American culture, agriculture, floods, and the natural world.
2. The Culture of the Blues and the Birth of An American Sound, which is about Blues music and its influence on American music and culture, from jazz to rock n roll to country, as well as Blues people, places, and events.
3. Moving Toward Freedom: Changing America's Character in the Struggle for Rights, which includes slavery and sharecropping, the Great Migration, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement, and race relations in the Delta today.
4. Growing More than Cotton: The Delta as a Wellspring of Creativity, which celebrates literature, food, the arts, and religion here in the Delta.
5. The Delta Divide: Creating the Delta's Diverse Communities, which highlights the stories of various immigrant groups that came to the Mississippi Delta and shaped the region with their distinctive cultural practices, including Chinese, Italians, Jews, and Lebanese.
The second banner features an image of an iconic Mississippi Delta landmark in the area surrounding each of the welcome centers. Listed below are the state welcome centers, their locations, and the landmarks featured in their areas.
| Welcome Center | Location | Featured MDNHA Landmark |
|---|---|---|
| DeSoto County Welcome Center | I-55 South Hernando, Mississippi |
Mississippi River at Tunica River Park Tunica, Mississippi |
| Delma Furniss Hospitality Station | Intersection of Highway 49 and Highway 61 Lula, Mississippi |
Dr. T.R.M. Howard Freedom Trail Marker Mound Bayou, Mississippi |
| Washington County Welcome Center | Highway 82 and Reed Road Greenville, Mississippi |
Chinese Cemetery Greenville, Mississippi |
| Warren County Welcome Center | 4210 Washington Street Vicksburg, Mississippi |
Mont Helena Rolling Fork, Mississippi |