Civil Rights Sins, Curated by One of the Sinners

Though several civil rights museums have cropped up, the Mississippi museum will be the first state-operated one in the country. That is its promise: a symbol that Mississippi has changed and is reckoning with the ugliest parts of its history.

“It has been a first-class effort, and you don’t see a lot of that in Mississippi,” said Reuben V. Anderson, the first black judge on the State Supreme Court and a trustee of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

But that is also what makes it suspect. For those who were beaten at the hands of state officials, whose oppression was state policy, and who are reminded of that by the Confederate saltire that remains in a corner of the state flag, handing personal relics to the State of Mississippi to become a part of its official history is a loaded decision.