November 23, 2019

East Mississippi Community College’s Tubb-May Library on the Scooba campus has been chosen as one of six Mississippi locations that will host a traveling exhibition by the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street titled “Crossroads: Change in Rural America.”

The exhibition will be on display at EMCC’s library from Feb. 2, 2021 to March 24 of that year.

“Crossroads” takes a broad look at the characteristics of rural America and covers themes such as rural identity, connection to the land and a sense of community, according to the Museum on Main Street website.

The exhibition “explores how an attraction to and interaction with the land formed the basis of our rural culture, and how rural communities and small towns evolve and change,” the website states.  “It also highlights how change transformed rural America, especially during the 1900s, and how rural Americans are evolving for the future.”

“’Crossroads’ allows us to reflect on Scooba’s history, present and future, and we are excited to explore what the future may hold for our community,” EMCC Scooba Head Librarian Christina Jurusik said. “We want to convene conversations about what makes our community unique and have developed local exhibitions and public programs to complement the Smithsonian exhibition.”

The “Crossroads” tour of Mississippi is being conducted in cooperation with the Mississippi Humanities Council and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. Other Mississippi host sites are Northwest Mississippi Community College, the Museum of the Mississippi Delta in Greenwood, the Jane Blain Brewer Memorial Library in Mount Olive, the Marion County Historical Society Museum & Archives in Columbia, and the Waveland Ground Zero Hurricane Museum.

“We are thrilled to bring ‘Crossroads’ to these communities,” Mississippi Humanities Council program officer and “Crossroads” state coordinator Caroline Gillespie states in a press release. “Their applications exhibited capacity, excitement and commitment that we are excited to see come to life as they host ‘Crossroads.’”