Mississippi State’s College of Arts and Sciences invites the campus community to sample something new this month with its first “book tasting” event, a creative twist that pairs books, conversation and Mississippi State flavor.

A rare book in Mississippi State University’s archives is reshaping what historians know about the origins of Juneteenth. For years, the earliest widely recognized Juneteenth celebration was believed to be an 1866 observance in Galveston, Texas, marking the anniversary of freedom for enslaved people there. But research by MSU historian Susannah J. Ural and her colleagues points to an even earlier celebration of emancipation in New Orleans during the summer of 1864.

Mississippi State University Assistant Professor Candace Lukasik has received a highly competitive 2026 Collaborative Research Grant from the American Academy of Religion to examine religious communities through the lens of diaspora—populations dispersed beyond their ancestral homelands while maintaining strong cultural and social ties.