MACE
Family Museum
Sharing our family history to amplify the Black experience in America.
IN THE SPIRIT OF HEALING
We first wish to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous communities native to the Edwards, Mississippi region. We acknowledge and honor the Natchez and Chahta Yakni (Choctaw) Tribes, the original people of the land upon which the Mace Family created its foundation.
We pay tribute to our African and Native American ancestors that were enslaved during various points of American history as a result of the transatlantic and domestic slave trades. Your strength continues to live through us.
WHY ARE WE BUILDING THE MACE FAMILY MUSEUM?
Through this project we have created a living vessel of our family’s history that will serve future generations in search of their past and their place in American History. It is our turn to control our narratives and give life to our forgotten ancestors. We hope our story makes you think and wonder and ask new questions and most of all, we hope you are inspired to tell us yours. When we tell our stories, we restore radical truths to the national dialogue. We must engage in truth-telling because ours, too, is the story of America.
"AMER'ICAN, n. - A native of America; originally applied to the aboriginals, or copper-colored races, found here by the Europeans; but now applied to the descendants of Europeans born in America."
-1828 Webster Dictionary
MISSISSIPPI
We are the direct descendants of George Mace Jr. and Queen Esther (Lowe) Mace of Hinds County, Mississippi. The Mace Family story begins with a single woman, our matriarch, the protagonist in our family’s story, Harriet Mozique. But her life and her children’s lives offer a glimpse into the major events in nineteenth and twentieth century American history from the ground up. Their stories raise questions about relationships between Native and African people in the antebellum period, highlight the drama of forced migration that resulted from the domestic slave trade, expose the reality of the black experience during the Civil War, give a glimpse into southern post-Reconstruction economies, and give us a rare picture of everyday, striving black people in Civil Rights-era Mississippi. While many descendants remained in Mississippi, many migrated to Louisiana, Indianapolis, Chicago, Las Vegas, Ohio, Milwaukee, California, Portland, Maryland, Florida, etc.
CLICK TO HEAR THE STORY
FEATURED EXHIBITS
George Mace Sr.
(1862-1944)
George Mace Sr. grew up free and, frankly, had not known much of slavery. He was only about three years old when the war ended and all the slaves were declared free. George Mace Sr. had come to Hinds County, Mississippi with his mother from Kentucky, but he didn’t remember much.
THE CHILDREN OF GEORGE JR
GET INVOLVED
Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to partner with the Mace Family Museum.
If you are a family member and would like to be involved, have artifacts, photos or stories to share....contact us.
Also, please consider donating to our museum so that we can preserve our family’s memories for future generations to come.