Meet the Team
The FIS Library is led by civil rights veteran and curator Jan Hillegas and community archivist Dr. Christina J. Thomas. Since 2024, nearly ten research assistants and interns have worked with the collection—creating inventories, organizing records, and compiling finding aids. Interested in volunteering, seeking an internship, or needing to fulfill practicum hours? Contact us below.
Jan Hillegas
Jan Hillegas researches family histories and documents Mississippi history through New Mississippi, Inc., her business since 1976. She was active in civil rights in her home and college city, Syracuse, New York, with the Congress of Racial Equality in the early 1960s and from 1963 to the present in Mississippi with the NAACP, Council of Federated Organizations, Freedom Information Service, and many other entities. Since 1965, she has amassed, housed, moved, financed, partially processed, and preserved the large FIS archive of Mississippi progressive movements and other history, including records of many organizations and issues with which she has been actively involved. She continues as an activist and collector and is also the volunteer principal with Conversations Mississippi to develop programs of intergenerational dialogue that use the past to understand the present and build a better future.
Dr. Christina J. Thomas
Dr. Christina J. Thomas is an interdisciplinary scholar and community historian passionate about developing and supporting public history projects. Her research primarily focuses on the history of civil rights, education, and Black women’s activism throughout the twentieth century. Her research has been supported by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript Archives and Rare Book Library at Emory University and the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University. Since 2023, Dr. Thomas has served as the community archivist for the FIS Library in Jackson, Mississippi, and teaches justice-impacted youth at a local prison school. For this work, she received the 2025 Humanities Scholar of the Year from the Mississippi Humanities Council and the Young Alumnus Award from Messiah University.
Contact Dr. Christina J. Thomas at: www.diaryofahistorian.com
Research Assistants
Caitlin Johnson
Summer 2024; Summer 2025; Fall 2025
Caitlin has been an intern for the FIS Library since the summer of 2024. She has assisted in the archival digitization of Freedom Vote applications from the Winter of 1964 to the Spring of 1965. Caitlin has presented her findings in the fall of 2024 at the Mississippi Museum Conference and the University of Reading’s 2024 Black History Month Flagship Event: Reclaiming Narratives.
Caitlin is a graduate of the University of Reading with a bachelor’s in Museum Studies and Archaeology. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Fashion Curating and Cultural Programming at the University of the Arts London.
Zoey Rockoff
Summer 2025 Community Archive Intern, funded by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Zoey Rockoff is a senior at Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio. She spent the summer organizing subcollections and combining records into folders. She worked on the following sub collections: Tougaloo College, Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Freedom Summer applications, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).
Her internship this past summer inspired and provided primary sources for her senior thesis research paper. She is writing about Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine, and Victoria Gray Adams and their integral involvement in the Mississippi Movement.
Nadia Wright
Summer 2025, funded by the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University.
Nadia Wright is from Jackson, Mississippi. She joined the FIS Library this summer as a graduate of Murrah High School. A first-year student at North Carolina A&T University, Wright plans to major in English with a concentration in African American literature and a minor in history. She aspires to publish literary works, launch a creative writing and visual arts magazine, and lead a nonprofit that uplifts the African American diaspora.
At Murrah, Nadia was a two-time Gold McMullen Scholarship recipient, a winner of 54 Scholastic awards in three years, including an American Vision Nominee and a National Silver Award recipient. She was also one of five National Student Poets for the 2024-2025 School Year, the first one from Mississippi.
“My internship this past summer inspired and provided primary sources for my senior thesis research paper. I’m writing about Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine, and Victoria Gray Adams and their integral involvement in the Mississippi Movement. I’m analyzing how age, class, race, and gender shaped the way the three women were involved within the Movement and how they were perceived and remembered. At large, I’m writing about the importance of middle-aged Black women to Mississippi’s fight for racial equality and voter registration.”
— Zoey Rockoff
FIS Library 