History Is Lunch: Belinda Stewart, “Citizen Architecture: 30+ Years of Preservation in Mississippi”

Over the decades, Stewart and her Eupora-based firm have helped analyze, preserve, rehabilitate, or raise funds for more than 600 historic structures, primarily in Mississippi. Those projects have ranged from museums and theaters to train depots and courthouses, including the Tallahatchie County Courthouse that was the site of the Emmett Till murder trial.

“Mississippi’s educational, governmental, commercial, and residential structures are the tangible evidence of our rich stories,” said Stewart. “That history is deep, complex, and sometimes difficult to bring to light, and it is historic preservation that allows us to better illustrate our shared stories.”

A new monograph titled The Citizen Architect chronicles the preservation work of Belinda Stewart Architects, from the firm’s early years of looking for historic structures in need of preservation to its present composition of more than twenty architects, preservationists, designers, administrators, and grant writers. Copies of the book will be available at the program, and more information on it can be found at www.citizenarchitectbelinda.com.

Belinda Stewart earned her bachelor of architecture degree from Mississippi State University. After beginning her career in North Carolina, she opened her own firm in Eupora in 1990. Stewart serves on the advisory council for Mississippi State University’s school of architecture and Carl Small Town Center and on the National Register Review Board of Mississippi’s State Historic Preservation Office. She is a founding member and former president of the Mississippi Heritage Trust. Stewart is serving her seventh term as mayor of the nearby Village of Walthall.

History Is Lunch is sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History explores different aspects of the state’s past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building at 222 North Street in Jackson and livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook.