The W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan, has announced a $2.3 million endowment grant in support of educational programs at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, which is scheduled to open in Jackson, Mississippi, in 2017.

Awarded to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the grant will establish an endowment for the museum that, in turn, will support efforts by MDAH, the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, and the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute to develop educational programs about the struggle for civil rights and provide a venue for meaningful public dialogue that fosters reconciliation and healing. Programs to be funded by the initiative include teacher training programs and workshops to prepare educators to teach an expanded civil rights curriculum using the museum's resources; digitization of historical documents from the Evers collection; and the Medgar Wiley Evers Lecture Series, which will engage communities across the state in the museum's programs.

The Kellogg Foundation has been active in Mississippi for more than forty years, and in 2013 it committed $3.8 million to organizations working to eliminate barriers to opportunity for young men of color in the state.

"We've come to understand that racial equity and healing are essential if we are going to accomplish our mission to support children, families, and communities in Mississippi," said WKKF president and CEO La June Montgomery Tabron. "The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum will help us all take an honest look at the past in a state that was, in so many ways, the epicenter of this struggle in our county. It's important to heal the wounds of the past, so that we can move forward together and put racism behind us for good."