The Friends of the Margaret Reed Crosby Memorial Library are featuring their annual Confederate Heritage Month Foyer Display, courtesy of the Gainesville Volunteers, Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 373, of Pearl River County.

The display features weapons, uniforms, numerous portraits of Mississippi Confederate soldiers in uniform, a wide array of various patterns of Confederate flags, books on Mississippi Confederate regiments, posters, medals, plaques, personal items related to the War for Southern Independence, rosters of some local Confederate companies, information on Black Confederates, and copies of Gov. Barbour’s Confederate Heritage Month Proclamation. The public is invited to visit this informative, multiple award-winning display, which will be up until April 14.

Confederate Heritage Month is celebrated across the South in April. Governor Haley Barbour has issued the following proclamation declaring April as Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi:

“State of Mississippi. Office of the Governor. A Proclamation. WHEREAS, April is the month in which the Confederate States began and ended a four-year struggle; and, WHEREAS, on Confederate Memorial Day, we recognize those who served in the Confederacy; and, WHEREAS, April 27, 2009, is set aside as Confederate Memorial Day to honor those who served in the Confederacy; and, WHEREAS, it is important for all Americans to reflect upon our Nation’s past, to gain insight from our mistakes and successes, and to come to a full understanding that the lessons learned yesterday and today will carry us through tomorrow if we carefully and earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us. NOW, THEREFORE, I, Haley Barbour, Governor of the State of Mississippi, hereby proclaim the month of April 2009 as: CONFEDERATE HERITAGE MONTH in the State of Mississippi and that the citizens thereof undertake measures to become more knowledgeable of and better understand the role of the Confederacy in American History. AND FURTHER, we charge the Mississippi Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans to organize and conduct, in cooperation with other state historical organizations, fitting and appropriate public observances to commemorate and publicize this rich heritage. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Mississippi to be affixed. DONE in the City of Jackson, on the nineteenth day of February in the year of our Lord, two-thousand and nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the two-hundred and thirty-third. (signed) Haley Barbour, Governor.”