Mississippi
Where the blues carried us through the weight of history.
Jackson · Port Gibson · Natchez · Biloxi · Meridian
The Journey
Mississippi is a cultural gem, deeply rooted in history.
In Jackson, we visited the State Capitol, continuing our journey through every capital in America. The white stone building, grand dome, and surrounding grounds were beautiful.
We then visited the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, where we came face to face with the struggle of our Black brothers and sisters for basic equality and freedom. Mississippi played an enormous role in the civil rights story, and suddenly names and events we had learned about belonged to real streets, buildings, towns, and people.
We also experienced Mississippi’s music, enjoying some wonderful live blues and hearing the sounds that grew from this state and eventually influenced music around the world.
Then we made our way down to Biloxi, where we discovered a completely different side of Mississippi. We visited the beach, walked the coast, spent time at the water park, and simply had a blast.
Mississippi felt like a place where beauty and pain, culture and history, all seemed to live very close together.
Jewish Mississippi
In Mississippi, we took a deep dive into a Jewish history that is much richer than most people realize.
In Jackson, we visited Beth Israel Congregation. The synagogue was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1967 during the civil rights era, when its rabbi and members were speaking out against segregation. Nearly sixty years later, in January 2026, the synagogue was badly damaged again in an antisemitic arson attack. Standing there, seeing the art outside and knowing what this community had endured, was deeply moving.
In Meridian, we visited another synagogue and saw another piece of a Jewish community that had once been much larger.
We spent a full day tracing Jewish history in Port Gibson. We stopped at the old Jewish cemetery on Marginal Street and then visited Temple Gemiluth Chessed, with its remarkable architecture, stained glass, and old mezuzah still on the doorway. The congregation is no longer active, but standing there made it easy to imagine the Jewish families who once filled the building.
From there we traveled to Natchez. We stopped at City Hall, in a city that once elected several Jewish leaders, and then had a private tour of historic Temple B’nai Israel on the corner of Washington and South Commerce Streets. I was mesmerized by the stained glass, the beauty of the sanctuary, and the thought of generations of Southern Jews who had prayed there.
We ended at the Jewish section of the Natchez City Cemetery, where we visited the grave of Rosalie Beekman.
Rosalie was only seven years old when the Union gunboat USS Essex shelled Natchez in September 1862. As her family fled, she was struck by shrapnel and mortally wounded. She died the following day, becoming the only civilian killed in that bombardment of Natchez. Standing at the grave of a seven year old Jewish girl made the Civil War feel painfully personal.
Jewish Mississippi is one of those stories you might never know existed unless you went looking for it.
We went looking. And we found it everywhere.
What Stayed With Me
Mississippi is one of those states that changed my perspective on America, liberty, and what true freedom actually means.
Walking through its civil rights history forces you to think about freedoms we sometimes take for granted, how recently they were denied to fellow Americans, and how much courage it took to change that.
But Mississippi also surprised me with how much joy was there. The blues, the culture, the coast, Biloxi, the beaches, and simply having fun with the girls.
I would not send someone to Mississippi looking for a Disney trip.
But if you want deep roots, life changing history, music, culture, and a little fun along the way, Mississippi is definitely the place.
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