The Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience, called the MAX, began with a 2001 act of the state legislature that called for a facility in Meridian to celebrate what Mississippians have given the arts. It took until April 28, 2018, to open. The money was a mix of private gifts, state funds and a 2 percent local tax on prepared food and drink that Meridian voters approved by nearly 70 percent. The building, on Front Street downtown, holds 58,500 square feet on two levels, with a recording studio, art studios and an outdoor amphitheater.
Fifteen permanent galleries are grouped under six themes: Land, Community, Home, Church, People and Places, and Global Community. The stories come in audio and video as much as in objects. The museum also keeps the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Hall of Fame, whose first class, announced in 2017, had eighteen members, among them Jimmie Rodgers, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Leontyne Price, Jim Henson, Walter Anderson, George Ohr and Oprah Winfrey.
A Hollywood-style Walk of Fame, unveiled in 2009, runs from the Mississippi State University Riley Center to the museum, so a stroll downtown doubles as a lesson in who came from here. Elvis Presley, Jimmie Rodgers, B.B. King, William Faulkner, Morgan Freeman, Hartley Peavey and Sela Ward are among its stars. Pair the MAX with the Meridian Civil Rights Trail, whose first stops are close by, and with the Jimmie Rodgers Museum.
The closest stops worth working into your route