Siggers High School

Siggers High School in Shannon operated from about 1940 to 1970 and was known in its early years as the Shannon Colored School. It was the community's first high school for Black students. A University of Mississippi oral history collection holds interviews with former students about farming families, dances, clubs, sports and teachers' discipline, and about what integration brought: white teachers, and the loss of records, photographs and trophies. A short film, We Make, followed. The class of 1965 pushed for a marker in time for its 60th reunion in 2025.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chickasaw Council House — 6.3 mi
  A roadside exhibit on the Natchez Trace Parkway marking the Chickasaw capital of the 1820s and the council house where the 1832 treaty of Pontotoc Creek ended Chickasaw title to Mississippi.
• Tupelo National Battlefield — 9.2 mi
  A one-acre park on Main Street marking the July 1864 battle of Tupelo, a Union victory that kept Nathan Bedford Forrest away from Sherman's supply line, with Black soldiers among the defenders.
• Elvis Presley Birthplace — 9.7 mi
  The two-room house in East Tupelo where Elvis Presley was born in 1935, with a museum and the church building the family attended, set near the vanished Black neighborhoods where he first heard the blues.
• Chickasaw Village Site — 11 mi
  A Chickasaw village on a remnant of the Black Belt Prairie beside the Natchez Trace Parkway, with house outlines marked on the ground and signs that speak in Chickasaw voices.

More markers nearby

• Okolona College — 7.6 mi
• Battle of Okolona — 7.6 mi
• Battle of Ackia — 8.6 mi
• John E. Rankin — 9.3 mi