Katrina made a direct impact on the building and its mission. Heavy winds blew the copper roof off and caused other damage. That created an opportunity.
“After the hurricane, we decided to focus on the building and on the building’s history,” Williams said.
The House Chamber got period carpeting, and each window has a set of three arrows at the top of the drapes. A reporter mentioned the arrows in his coverage of the 1861 debate over secession, when Mississippi left the United States.
“We tried to recreate it as best we could,” Williams said. “Obviously, there aren’t many pictures of the inside of the building.”
He said the House Chamber is his favorite room because so many far-reaching decisions were made there.
“All of the colleges and universities that you know of, the legislation forming them came out of this room,” he said.
Some of Mississippi’s troubles grew out of the same room. There were 142,000 black registered voters in 1890. The number was down to 8,615 in 1896. The drop is directly attributable to the poll tax and literacy test in the 1890 Constitution, which was hammered out in the House Chamber.
“If you were a black person and you read the literacy test perfectly and explained it, the registrar could still say ‘Nah,’” Williams said. “If you were a sharecropper in Mississippi and you had to pay $2 to vote and you made $88 a year, you might say, ‘I won’t vote.’”
The effect on black voters was devastating, and poor whites also were affected. There were 110,000 registered white voters in 1890. The number was 68,117 in 1892.
“We’re not glossing over anything,” Williams said. “We’re telling the truth here. We’re telling the truth about where we’ve been and where we’re going.”
In addition to being a storehouse of state history, the Old Capitol Museum is a monument to what human beings can accomplish.
It’s an impressive structure with its elegant rotunda and dome, as well as Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns. Rosettes decorate the Governor’s Office and the House Chamber. Builders and craftsmen dedicated 