Alferdteen harrison bio

By Alice Thomas-Tisdale

JA Publisher Emerita

The Jackson Advocate dedicates our 2024 Black History Special Edition to Dr.

Alferdteen Harrison, Mississippi’s lead scholar on the preservation of Black life and culture.

From her time as a young student at the Piney Woods Country Life School in the mid-1950s, to being a principal creator of the first statewide African American museum and cultural center — Smith Robertson (1984) — and the resurgence of the Alamo Theater (1996),  she has ensured the future of the contributions made by Black communities to American society.

Because of her dedication and foresight, the body of work by Black Mississippians will never be underrepresented, overlooked, or misunderstood.

There’s a reason Dr. Harrison was awarded the Mississippi Historical Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.

A few years prior, in 2016, she was inducted into the University of