documenting the past, shaping the future
Applications for 2027-2028 Scholarships Will Open January 1, 2027
If funds are available, scholarships ranging from approximately $500 to $1,000 will be available to students attending or planning to attend college, universities, and other post-secondary institutions. Awards are open to applicants nationwide and will be accepted until April 1, 2027.
Click here for Scholarship guidelines.
Throughout 2026, we saw price increases on items we buy daily, such as food and gasoline. Although many long for the “good old days,” when gas prices were below two dollars a gallon and a dozen eggs cost less than one dollar, I'm happy to report that MHF donors did not let these dire economic times curb their willingness to give back and help young people reach their career goals.
We kindly ask that you consider donating to MHF as you give during the 2026 Holiday Season.
Sylvia Gist
Twelve First Time Award Recipients
When we started the Foundation thirteen years ago, we collected just enough to give one $500 scholarship. Our donations have continued to grow over the years, allowing us to increase both scholarship amounts and the number of recipients. The 12 first-time awardees shown below received $ 1,000 scholarships. I join our 2026 recipients in thanking all donors for continuing to give back.
•Tiashisa Collier, Tchula, MS
•Hinds Community College, Raymond, MS
•$1000 Chalmers Archer, Jr.. Scholarship
•Kennedy Glover, Chicago, IL
•Xavier University, New Orleans, LA
•$1000 Annie Smothers Memorial Scholarship
•Al’Thelmeka Giles, Lexington, MS
•East Mississippi Community College, Scooba, MS
•$1000 Chalmers Archer, Jr. Memorial Scholarship
•Andria Johnson, Pickens, MS
•Alcorn State University, Lorman, MS
•Chalmers Archer Memorial Scholarship
Chauvin Langston, Jr., Thornton, IL
•Chicago State University, Chicago, IL
•$1000 Migration Heritage Foundation Scholarship
Jayana Monroe, Chicago, IL
•North Carolina A&T State University
•$1000 Victor Quann Jackson Scholarship
Kristin Price, Nashville, TN
•University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
•$1000 Reedy Family Memorial Scholarship
Viviana Rivera, Jacksonville, FL
•University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL
•$1000 Migration Heritage Foundation Scholarship
•Martavius Shaw, Goodman, MS
•Holmes Community College, Goodman, MS
•$1000 Chalmers Archer, Jr. Memorial Scholarship
•Ka’Duyn Sims, Lima, OH OH
•The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH
•Migration Heritage Foundation Scholarship
•Miles Warner, Decatur, GA
•Yale University, New Haven, CT
•Migration Heritage Foundation Scholarship
1. Mail a check or Money Order to Migration Heritage Foundation, PO Box 247, Durant, MS 39063,
2. Send via Cash App to $mhf22,
3. Visit the MHF website at www.mhf2.org and click “Donate," OR
4. Visit or click this link: https://donorbox.org/annual-campaign-6/.
Previous recipients' awards were renewed. Two were awarded $500, and one $1,940. The latter amount went to a student for whom the donor paid full tuition and fees throughout the 2025-26 academic year. The three are shown below.
•Ariana Buchanan, Tchula, MS
•Hinds Community College, Raymond, MS
•$1,940 Maurice Wade Memorial Scholarship—Full &Tuition/Fees
•(Click here for the donor’s information)
•Harvey Ellington, Lexington, MS
•Delta State University, Cleveland, MS
•$500 William J. Campbell Memorial Scholarship
• (Click here for donor information)
•Kyla Horton, Canton, MS
•Holmes Community College, Ridgeland, MS
•$500 Hermie L Campbell Memorial Scholarship
•(Click here for donor information)
Foundation Donors Help Youth Develop Literacy and Life Skills during Summer Camp
With support from anonymous donors to the Chalmers Archer, Jr. Memorial Fund, Migration Heritage Foundation (MHF) provided stipends to cover summer cooking camp expenses for Brylan Thomas (l, l photo) and Aubrey Cobbins (r, l photo). The youth live in Carroll County, MS, but have ancestral roots and relatives in Holmes County.
Brylan and Aubrey are shown (top photo) enjoying a meal they prepared. They took a dish home each day and kept a daily journal of all the recipes. They pose below on the last day of camp with their instructors, Carter Nunley (left) and Arie Strain (right), at Viking Cooking School in Greenwood. MS..
Many thanks to donors for providing this unique opportunity for our youth to participate in summer camp and simultaneously develop reading, writing, math, and life skills.
. “She wasn’t an educator, but she taught me how to be the person I am today,” recalled one of Annie Smothers' sons. Annie raised nine biological children and a niece (her deceased sister’s daughter). She did so with meager means she scraped from the Delta soil in the Howard Bottom Community near Tchula, Mississippi. The impact of Annie's commitment to youth continues to this day. Although many of her descendants migrated from Mississippi, they continue to honor Annie’s legacy more than three decades after her passing.
As the recipient of the first Annie Smothers Scholarship in August 2026. Kennedy Glover (photo, right), a Chicago resident, is reaping the benefits of the impact Mrs. Smothers’ love and care had on those she raised. Ms. Glover is using the funds to help defray expenses in the Pre-med Program at Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana. In the essay she submitted for the scholarship, Kennedy wrote:
My dream is to create a legacy, to make a difference, and to show other African-American girls who are just like me that they can beat this system, too. I am going into a field that is underrepresented (Medicine--Anesthesiology) to show those looking up to me that I can be the representation.
We are proud to recognize this honor for Annie’s legacy, which her offspring have provided. Our best wishes for success go to Kennedy as she prepares to shape the future for herself and others and to carry the legacy forward.
Marjorie Campbell Barnes-Williams departed this life on February 18, 2025. Immediately after she was laid to rest in the Thurmond Cemetery in Lexington, MS, her descendants, nieces and nephews, memorialized her legacy with the Marjorie Barnes-Williams Memorial Scholarship as a perpetual tribute.
Jah’Elle Smith (photo on the right) felt the rewarding effect of the tribute in August 2026 when she received the $1,000 award. The funds will help defray her expenses during the 2026-2027 academic year in the Pharmacy Program at Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
In her essay titled “My Haitian Heritage, My American Dream,” Jah’Elle wrote:
Haiti has always lived inside of me, even while growing up in Chicago, a city deeply connected to Haitian history through Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Knowing that a Haitian man founded the city I grew up in made me feel seen. It reminded me that my heritage has always had a place here, even when people do not realize it….
Looking back at my childhood I can proudly say my passion and goal in life derived from my heritage. I remember sitting there, breathing in the steam filled with orange peels and limes, my eyes closed, listening to my mother’s voice telling me it would help. And slowly it did. At the time, it felt normal. But now I understand it differently. That was care. That was knowledge passed down. That was love that did not come from pharmacy, but from generations before me...
I want to become a pediatrician, not just to treat children, but to support families who are still learning how to navigate a healthcare system that does not always understand them. I want to be someone they can trust.
We wish her success as she prepares for this new chapter in her life!
Jayana Monroe,
North Carolina A&T State University
The Victor Quann Jackson (VQJ) Scholarship was first awarded in 2026 to support young people who faced adversity but remained determined to pursue their dreams. The award honors the legacy of Victor Quann Jackson (Quann), an educator and first-generation college graduate who overcame significant life challenges.
Born in New York and raised in foster homes, Quann’s journey to success was anything but easy. After dropping out of high school to work, he took night classes to earn his GED, later earning both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chicago State University. Despite facing childhood and health challenges later in life, Quann never let them hinder his pursuit of goals or his ability to live unapologetically.
For more than two decades, Quann taught in the Chicago Public Schools system. He spent this time instilling not only knowledge in his students but also a belief in determination and self-confidence, encouraging them to persevere through adversity and strive for greater heights in life.
To compete for the award, applicants submitted essays describing a time in their lives when they showed resilience. After much consideration, the committee selected Jayana Monroe (photo at right) of Chicago, IL. Jayana is pursuing a career as a radiologic technologist at North Carolina A&T State University. Visit www.mhtr.us to read her essay.
We appreciate those who donated to this initial VQJ Scholarship and encourage others to support young people who recognize the relationship between resilience and success in life.
Scholarship Guidelines
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Stipend Guidelines & Application
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Migration Heritage Foundation
PO Box 247
Durant MS 39063
www.mhtr.us
FALL 2025
We sincerely appreciate the past contributions of our donors and hope all of our readers will support us in the future. This publication provides a recap of the activities in which the Migration Heritage Foundation (MHF) has participated throughout the year. It also reminds you to share your blessing on December 2, which is Giving Tuesday. Tax-deductible donations for 2025 can be made to qualifying non-profit organizations through December 31.
Sylvia Gist
2025 Scholarships Awarded
MHF received 25 applications for scholarships in 2025 and made awards in June and July to about half of the applicants. Photos of awardees and the amounts they received are shown below. I join these young people in thanking all who donated.
Kyla Patterson
Beatrice Alexander v Holmes County Board of Education Marker
Unveiled June 17
MHF partnered with the Mississippi Humanities Council, Holmes County officials, and Visit Mississippi to install the Beatrice Alexander v Holmes County Board of Education historic marker on the campus of S. V. Marshall School (formerly Tchula Attendance Center {TAC}) that posthumously recognized Beatrice Alexander, the TAC student for whom the Supreme Court case decided in 1969 was named.
As a ninth-grade student at TAC when the NAACP filed the suit in 1965, Beatrice withstood the pressures that came with being named the primary plaintiff, as her name was first on the list of 377 student plaintiffs, alphabetized. The case gained national notoriety when the High Court ruled in 1969 that all public school districts must end the delay that had existed since their Brown v Board of Education ruling in 1954 and integrate schools immediately.
While Beatrice passed away years earlier, her children and a host of her relatives were present and participated in the June 17, 2025 unveiling.
National Federation of Colored Farmers (NFCF) Marker Unveiled Near Tchula on October 25
Thanks to a generous donation, we installed a historic marker on October 25 that recognizes the National Federation of Colored Farmers (NFCF).
Placed on the grounds of Mt. Zion Church near Tchula, this permanent figure (photo right) recognizes Black farmers in the Hills and Delta sections of Holmes County for the roles they played helping members of their race throughout the nation become self-sufficient farm owners during the 1920s and 1930s.
The NFCF was organized at Mt. Zion Church in Holmes County in 1929. The bold actions of descendants of these pioneer black landowners paved ushered the Civil Rights movement that surfaced in the county during the 1960s and ultimately paved the path to the Alexander v Holmes Supreme Court Decision in 1969.
Book About Holmes County Recently Published
Diane Feldman’s book, Borrowed Land, Stolen Labor, and the Holy Spirit: The Struggle for Power and Equality in Holmes County, Mississippi, was published in July 2025. It is a local history that chronicles how white Americans forcibly took land in Holmes County from Native Americans and used the free labor of enslaved African Americans to develop it for the enslavers’ economic, political, and social benefits.
Feldman discusses how religious beliefs among Black Holmes Countians fueled determinations that founded the Holiness-Pentecostal Church of God in Christ (COGIC) denomination and set a path to the Holmes County Civil Rights Movement.
A “must-read!” Get your copy today from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Borrowed-Land-Stolen-Labor-Spirit/dp/1496857461 or the University Press of Mississippi at https://www.upress.state.ms.us/content/search?search_in%5B%5D=all&SearchText=feldman.
Family Roots Literature Available: The documents below are available from the Foundation. The Cemetery Guides are available in both electronic and printed formats. The book is available only in printed form. The Guides contain a list of names, dates of birth, and dates of death as shown on each tombstone in the cemetery.
Show in the comments section of the order form whether you want an electronic or printed copy of the Guides. Also, show the email address to which the electronic copy should be sent or the physical address to which the printed copy should be mailed. While there is no charge for these documents, a minimum shipping and handling fee is requested. Feel free to donate an additional amount to the Foundation when you place your order.
Thurmond Cemetery Guide, Updated 2024, Compiled by Sylvia Gist, Edwin Gist, and Jacqueline Saffold.
Wade Cemetery Guide, Updated 2025, Compiled by Sylvia Gist
Mis-Educating Blacks in a Southern Rural Community: The Case of Holmes County, Mississippi, 2023, by Sylvia Reedy Gist
Scan the QR Code or CLICK HERE to place an order.