In 2006, on Mother's Day, The Jacqueline House celebrated its tenth anniversary. The little house on Main Street, in 1995, became the only African American Museum in Vicksburg, and remains so to this day.
It was dedicated and opened by Jacqueline's children on Mother’s Day that year, 10 months after she had died, and has been open ever since.
The Robbins Family and Mr. Tillman Whitley maintain and support the House, with a burgeoning collection of unmatched history and artifacts about the African American presence in Vicksburg.
Among other collections, it has private papers from Mrs. Hilner Connor; Josephine Buck on tape; Tom Wince's papers; Dr. McAllister's family pictures, her diplomas and degrees; Dr. Bowie's dissertation for his PhD from Johns Hopkins; Mrs. Rosa Temple's photo album, and other invaluable archives.
More recent history abounds as well. There are yearbooks, annuals, class photos, including one Alcorn would die for, from 1927.
And all of the photographs on this website come from The Jacqueline House Archives.
But much more than a repository, the Jacqueline House impact has been to model a new kind of attitude and concept.
Mr. Whitley said, "The history is in the community and that's where museums should be. "We've created a new model with The Jacqueline House, and we tell people all the time that you don't have to raise a million dollars to build a building. "There are small vacant houses in every community," he said, "and there are carpenters and craftsmen in every community who can make them into museums."
But even after 10 years as Vicksburg's only Black History Museum, the Jacqueline House is having an outsized, outside impact.
Many visitors leave with an expressed determination to do something like this in their own communities. The Jacqueline House is breaking out all over.
Back in 2000, The Jacqueline House was a surprised and delighted host when a young man from Barcelona, Spain stopped in with his guitar. He told us he was searching for the soul of Willie Dixon.
For six years, he had saved his money not to come to New York or Chicago, but Vicksburg, Mississippi because it was the home of his hero and his heart.
You could not imagine an unlikelier sight than this young man sitting on the steps of our museum and singing "Hoochie Coochie Man."
NASA engineer Blake Lorenz and his wife, Janice, a transportation engineer, came to visit us after settling their daughter into Xavier University. Their son, Ben, had graduated from Brown, and had just begun med school. Mrs. Lorenz who was an engineer was anxious to speak with then Mayor Robert Walker about transportation in Vicksburg. But he was out-of-town. What a connection, though, through The Jacqueline House!
Then Muslims came visiting from California. They had started out in Vicksburg as Baptists and Catholics, and their mother still lived in Vicksburg. But her daughter and her daughter's family had become devout Muslims with a profound interest in the Arabic history of Blacks. They were very anxious to help dispute the notion that the first slaves were illiterate and uneducated. On the contrary, they said, a large body of scholarship establishes that the first slaves were very well-educated.
Norma Hoffman Davis, recently of Oak Park, Michigan, but returning to Charleston, South Carolina where she and her husband would restore their family homestead, visited The Jacqueline House looking for information about an old family member who had been one of the first parishioners of St. Mary's Catholic Church. And we found it for her, on page 21 of Mary Best's study of the southern missions called Seventy Septembers. Mrs. Davis, sitting in a rocking chair and sipping a Coke, read aloud to us about her ancestor, named Ellen Cox.
This is just the surface of what The Jacqueline House has meant to Vicksburg. Lisa Gay Hamilton, who starred in The Practice for many years, came to The Jacqueline House to research the life of Vicksburg's late, renowned actress, Beah Richards. Ms. Hamilton had been a longtime neighbor and friend of Ms. Richards when they had both lived in L.A. The inspiration of Miss Richards' life and work made Ms. Hamilton want to document it. So with the help of producer Joe Viola and cameraman Sovonto Greene, Ms. Hamilton made the documentary that was then nominated for the best film at Cannes. Interviews from The Jacqueline House were part of that documentary. But the most wonderful part of that visit to The Jacqueline House for Ms. Hamilton was finding Miss Beah's high-school graduation program there, and her name, not just with the other graduates, but starring in the play. O what an omen!
Early in its history, The Jacqueline House acquired two priceless pieces of Vicksburg's Black history and culture.
One was the original Vicksburg charter of The Knights of Pythias, incorporated here in 1893. The other was a contemporary work by local artist, Verdee Thomas, who transformed the subject of a blurred, old photograph into a visually vibrant evocation of Vicksburg's not too distant past. Both are now permanent pieces of The Jacqueline House Collection.
The charter was presented by Mr. Lawrence Savage, a well-known Jackson artist, who found the charter tucked in a frame he purchased for $3.00 at a resale shop in Chicago now thirty years ago. Mr. Savage kept the charter, sensing its history and importance, but having no idea he would one day wind up with it in Vicksburg. Over the years, it captured the interest of both Dr. Benjamin Hooks and Mayor Walker. But when Mr. Savage saw a segment about The Jacqueline House on WJTV, he came and visited the House, and felt the Charter had found its home.
Shortly before that, Charles Riles had dedicated the entire St. Francis Convent Collection of books and religious art.
But The Jacqueline House has given as much as it's got. Over the past several years, it has provided a wealth of information to out-of-town families with Vicksburg connections like Wesley Crayton's descendants. He was the first black alderman in Vicksburg.
And the family of Reverend Jno. J. Morant, a distinguished early pastor of Bethel A.M.E. Church.
In fact, The Jacqueline House was able to locate for that family a rare first edition of Mississippi Minister written by him and published over four decades ago. Prior efforts had failed to find one.
The Jacqueline House was also a destination of writer Stephen King. Having found it on the Internet, he made it a point to visit, and spent almost two hours at The Jacqueline House absorbing the history of Blacks in Vicksburg. He also made a generous donation to its furtherance.
And in 2000 The Jacqueline House created and taped a forum called Growing Up Black In Vicksburg which featured the recollections of black residents, 50 and over, about growing up here in the first half of the last century. Mayor Walker and the Vicksburg Senior Center, which hosted that event, both have copies of that tape. The original, of course, belongs to The Jacqueline House.
And of course it was the sine qua non for the black mural on the river. Without the resources of The Jacqueline House and the knowledge of Tillman Whitley, that mural would not be there.
A crucial question for black people, now more than ever, is "Who owns their history?"
In our recent past, a white man has come to own Charlie Parker's sax. And until just recently, white people owned Madam C.J. Walker's home. White people have owned, perhaps still do, Alex Haley's farm. And from Ole Miss now comes the blues, where we weren't once allowed.
Of course culture and history belong to everyone. And, of course, all who are interested must have access.
But Black people are understandably sensitive and legitimately concerned that we do not have to buy or pay for what belongs to us.
Nor is it simply a matter of ownership. It's also about presentation. How will our history be shown and told? If we forfeit all the things in our history, we also forfeit control.
History is a business these days, and Black History, a very big business. We are foolish if we surrender the things that we value to a few with a lot of money who are not accountable to us. So the ultimate value of The Jacqueline House is that it belongs to us. It's ours.
When we celebrated its first anniversary, in 1996, it was a day filled with music and laughter, homemade plum brandy and elderberry wine.Tillman brought his Black history tapes from home and showed them all day long: a stupendous collection of history and achievement. One lady was very deeply moved by the "Sweet Honey" rendition of "By and By."
The conversation was wonderful; friends and classmates lingered over old photographs; and all were astounded at the vastness, even then, of the history in that House: from Mack Pampley's Bronze Star to the Black Boys In Blue.
"Our first year has been tremendous," said Curator Whitley, "and we can only get better."
And we did.
The next year, The Jacqueline House jammed. At the sorely-missed "Sounding Board," we jammed!
Timeless jazz classics, instrumental and vocal, provided the music and background for a dazzling display of Black History.
A television on the bar that night showed the Alvin Ailey Dancers in performance and historic footage of the Black American experience.
It also showed an interview of Mr. Whitley by WLBT's Walt Grayson which had aired all over the state on the previous Friday. And it included a visit to The Jacqueline House by WJTV during Black History Month.
The people of St. Mary's turned out not only to commemorate the House – and the one for whom it was named, who had also been one of them – but to celebrate the 82nd birthday of their friend and fellow-parishioner, the late Mrs. Elnora Washington who had recently graced the church and its children with great generosity and grace.
With fresh fruit and flowers and a vast variety of good things to eat; celebrating Jacqueline's life and Miss Nora's birthday, it was Sunday like it used to be – when after church, and still dressed up, we promenaded around and drinks were served on white tablecloths, and people laughed, and the music was good! Oh my!
State Representative George Flaggs read a proclamation honoring The Jacqueline House. Robert came too. Gertrude was there; Rose from WE CARE with her mom; Sarah too; Ezell and Albert McDonald; Sarah Dave and her husband from Port Gibson; Father Murrin, pastor of St. Mary's for nearly nine years; Dr. Josephine Calloway.
But most of all, most of all, Jacqueline's son, Tony, and her daughter, Patrice.
She would have loved this party!
The Jacqueline House Museum of African American History was a gift to Vicksburg's Black community in memory of Jacqueline Robbins Rose, the elder daughter of the late James C. and Effie Lillian Robbins who established and operated Robbins Funeral Home of Vicksburg.
Jacqueline was 63 when she died in 1994, eight months before her father, whom she had returned home to care for the last decade of her life.
In memory of their mother, her generosity and spirit, Jacqueline's five children donated the little frame house where she had lived to the fledgling effort of several local residents to establish a location for Black History here.
It was dedicated and opened by Jacqueline's children on Mother’s Day that year, 10 months after she had died, and has been open ever since.
The Robbins Family and Mr. Tillman Whitley maintain and support the House, with a burgeoning collection of unmatched history and artifacts about the African American presence in Vicksburg.
Among other collections, it has private papers from Mrs. Hilner Connor; Josephine Buck on tape; Tom Wince's papers; Dr. McAllister's family pictures, her diplomas and degrees; Dr. Bowie's dissertation for his PhD from Johns Hopkins; Mrs. Rosa Temple's photo album, and other invaluable archives.
More recent history abounds as well. There are yearbooks, annuals, class photos, including one Alcorn would die for, from 1927.
And all of the photographs on this website come from The Jacqueline House Archives.
But much more than a repository, the Jacqueline House impact has been to model a new kind of attitude and concept.
Mr. Whitley said, "The history is in the community and that's where museums should be. "We've created a new model with The Jacqueline House, and we tell people all the time that you don't have to raise a million dollars to build a building. "There are small vacant houses in every community," he said, "and there are carpenters and craftsmen in every community who can make them into museums."
But even after 10 years as Vicksburg's only Black History Museum, the Jacqueline House is having an outsized, outside impact.
Many visitors leave with an expressed determination to do something like this in their own communities. The Jacqueline House is breaking out all over.
Back in 2000, The Jacqueline House was a surprised and delighted host when a young man from Barcelona, Spain stopped in with his guitar. He told us he was searching for the soul of Willie Dixon.
For six years, he had saved his money not to come to New York or Chicago, but Vicksburg, Mississippi because it was the home of his hero and his heart.
You could not imagine an unlikelier sight than this young man sitting on the steps of our museum and singing "Hoochie Coochie Man."
NASA engineer Blake Lorenz and his wife, Janice, a transportation engineer, came to visit us after settling their daughter into Xavier University. Their son, Ben, had graduated from Brown, and had just begun med school. Mrs. Lorenz who was an engineer was anxious to speak with then Mayor Robert Walker about transportation in Vicksburg. But he was out-of-town. What a connection, though, through The Jacqueline House!
Then Muslims came visiting from California. They had started out in Vicksburg as Baptists and Catholics, and their mother still lived in Vicksburg. But her daughter and her daughter's family had become devout Muslims with a profound interest in the Arabic history of Blacks. They were very anxious to help dispute the notion that the first slaves were illiterate and uneducated. On the contrary, they said, a large body of scholarship establishes that the first slaves were very well-educated.
Norma Hoffman Davis, recently of Oak Park, Michigan, but returning to Charleston, South Carolina where she and her husband would restore their family homestead, visited The Jacqueline House looking for information about an old family member who had been one of the first parishioners of St. Mary's Catholic Church. And we found it for her, on page 21 of Mary Best's study of the southern missions called Seventy Septembers. Mrs. Davis, sitting in a rocking chair and sipping a Coke, read aloud to us about her ancestor, named Ellen Cox.
This is just the surface of what The Jacqueline House has meant to Vicksburg. Lisa Gay Hamilton, who starred in The Practice for many years, came to The Jacqueline House to research the life of Vicksburg's late, renowned actress, Beah Richards. Ms. Hamilton had been a longtime neighbor and friend of Ms. Richards when they had both lived in L.A. The inspiration of Miss Richards' life and work made Ms. Hamilton want to document it. So with the help of producer Joe Viola and cameraman Sovonto Greene, Ms. Hamilton made the documentary that was then nominated for the best film at Cannes. Interviews from The Jacqueline House were part of that documentary. But the most wonderful part of that visit to The Jacqueline House for Ms. Hamilton was finding Miss Beah's high-school graduation program there, and her name, not just with the other graduates, but starring in the play. O what an omen!
Early in its history, The Jacqueline House acquired two priceless pieces of Vicksburg's Black history and culture.
One was the original Vicksburg charter of The Knights of Pythias, incorporated here in 1893. The other was a contemporary work by local artist, Verdee Thomas, who transformed the subject of a blurred, old photograph into a visually vibrant evocation of Vicksburg's not too distant past. Both are now permanent pieces of The Jacqueline House Collection.
The charter was presented by Mr. Lawrence Savage, a well-known Jackson artist, who found the charter tucked in a frame he purchased for $3.00 at a resale shop in Chicago now thirty years ago. Mr. Savage kept the charter, sensing its history and importance, but having no idea he would one day wind up with it in Vicksburg. Over the years, it captured the interest of both Dr. Benjamin Hooks and Mayor Walker. But when Mr. Savage saw a segment about The Jacqueline House on WJTV, he came and visited the House, and felt the Charter had found its home.
Shortly before that, Charles Riles had dedicated the entire St. Francis Convent Collection of books and religious art.
But The Jacqueline House has given as much as it's got. Over the past several years, it has provided a wealth of information to out-of-town families with Vicksburg connections like Wesley Crayton's descendants. He was the first black alderman in Vicksburg.
And the family of Reverend Jno. J. Morant, a distinguished early pastor of Bethel A.M.E. Church.
In fact, The Jacqueline House was able to locate for that family a rare first edition of Mississippi Minister written by him and published over four decades ago. Prior efforts had failed to find one.
The Jacqueline House was also a destination of writer Stephen King. Having found it on the Internet, he made it a point to visit, and spent almost two hours at The Jacqueline House absorbing the history of Blacks in Vicksburg. He also made a generous donation to its furtherance.
And in 2000 The Jacqueline House created and taped a forum called Growing Up Black In Vicksburg which featured the recollections of black residents, 50 and over, about growing up here in the first half of the last century. Mayor Walker and the Vicksburg Senior Center, which hosted that event, both have copies of that tape. The original, of course, belongs to The Jacqueline House.
And of course it was the sine qua non for the black mural on the river. Without the resources of The Jacqueline House and the knowledge of Tillman Whitley, that mural would not be there.
A crucial question for black people, now more than ever, is "Who owns their history?"
In our recent past, a white man has come to own Charlie Parker's sax. And until just recently, white people owned Madam C.J. Walker's home. White people have owned, perhaps still do, Alex Haley's farm. And from Ole Miss now comes the blues, where we weren't once allowed.
Of course culture and history belong to everyone. And, of course, all who are interested must have access.
But Black people are understandably sensitive and legitimately concerned that we do not have to buy or pay for what belongs to us.
Nor is it simply a matter of ownership. It's also about presentation. How will our history be shown and told? If we forfeit all the things in our history, we also forfeit control.
History is a business these days, and Black History, a very big business. We are foolish if we surrender the things that we value to a few with a lot of money who are not accountable to us. So the ultimate value of The Jacqueline House is that it belongs to us. It's ours.
When we celebrated its first anniversary, in 1996, it was a day filled with music and laughter, homemade plum brandy and elderberry wine.Tillman brought his Black history tapes from home and showed them all day long: a stupendous collection of history and achievement. One lady was very deeply moved by the "Sweet Honey" rendition of "By and By."
The conversation was wonderful; friends and classmates lingered over old photographs; and all were astounded at the vastness, even then, of the history in that House: from Mack Pampley's Bronze Star to the Black Boys In Blue.
"Our first year has been tremendous," said Curator Whitley, "and we can only get better."
And we did.
The next year, The Jacqueline House jammed. At the sorely-missed "Sounding Board," we jammed!
Timeless jazz classics, instrumental and vocal, provided the music and background for a dazzling display of Black History.
A television on the bar that night showed the Alvin Ailey Dancers in performance and historic footage of the Black American experience.
It also showed an interview of Mr. Whitley by WLBT's Walt Grayson which had aired all over the state on the previous Friday. And it included a visit to The Jacqueline House by WJTV during Black History Month.
The people of St. Mary's turned out not only to commemorate the House – and the one for whom it was named, who had also been one of them – but to celebrate the 82nd birthday of their friend and fellow-parishioner, the late Mrs. Elnora Washington who had recently graced the church and its children with great generosity and grace.
With fresh fruit and flowers and a vast variety of good things to eat; celebrating Jacqueline's life and Miss Nora's birthday, it was Sunday like it used to be – when after church, and still dressed up, we promenaded around and drinks were served on white tablecloths, and people laughed, and the music was good! Oh my!
State Representative George Flaggs read a proclamation honoring The Jacqueline House. Robert came too. Gertrude was there; Rose from WE CARE with her mom; Sarah too; Ezell and Albert McDonald; Sarah Dave and her husband from Port Gibson; Father Murrin, pastor of St. Mary's for nearly nine years; Dr. Josephine Calloway.
But most of all, most of all, Jacqueline's son, Tony, and her daughter, Patrice.
She would have loved this party!
The Jacqueline House Museum of African American History was a gift to Vicksburg's Black community in memory of Jacqueline Robbins Rose, the elder daughter of the late James C. and Effie Lillian Robbins who established and operated Robbins Funeral Home of Vicksburg.
Jacqueline was 63 when she died in 1994, eight months before her father, whom she had returned home to care for the last decade of her life.
In memory of their mother, her generosity and spirit, Jacqueline's five children donated the little frame house where she had lived to the fledgling effort of several local residents to establish a location for Black History here.
