Flights to Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport (JAN)
JAN serves Mississippi's capital city and is the gateway to the Mississippi Delta Blues Trail. Delta, American, United, and Southwest connect Jackson to major US hubs. FareOptic compares all carriers for the cheapest fare.
Flights to Jackson (JAN)
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Why Visit Jackson?
The South's most comprehensive civil rights museum, two of America's most significant civil rights landmarks, a Pulitzer Prize winner's literary home, and the gateway to the Mississippi Delta that gave the world the Blues
Mississippi Civil Rights Museum -- One of the South's Most Comprehensive and Emotionally Powerful Civil Rights Institutions, Opened 2017
Eight Galleries Documenting 100 Years of African American Life, Struggle, and Resistance in the State That Produced Both the Most Violent Racial Terror and the Most Resilient Civil Rights MovementThe Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (222 North Street, downtown Jackson, adjacent to the Museum of Mississippi History -- the two museums share a campus and are administered together by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History; opened December 9, 2017, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), one of Mississippi's key civil rights coordinating bodies) is one of the most historically comprehensive and visually compelling civil rights museums in the United States, and arguably the most important state-level civil rights institution in the country. Mississippi's claim to this preeminence is both brutal and profound: no state in the United States had a worse record of racial violence, political disenfranchisement, and legal apartheid from 1865-1965, and no state had a more determined, more creative, and ultimately more successful civil rights movement in response. The museum's eight galleries trace the full arc: 'This Land,' on Mississippi's Indigenous and early colonial history; 'Paradox of Slavery,' on the antebellum plantation economy; 'The Closed Society,' on post-Reconstruction Mississippi's system of racial terror and disenfranchisement (the state led the nation in lynchings per capita from 1880-1940 -- 654 documented lynchings, more than any other state); 'I Question America' (a phrase from Fannie Lou Hamer's 1964 Democratic National Convention testimony, one of the most important pieces of political oratory of the 20th century); 'Into the Sunlight,' on the legislative achievements of the movement; and the 'Mississippi Freedom Gallery,' on the movement's Mississippi-born and -bred leaders.
Fannie Lou Hamer and the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Challenge -- How a Mississippi Sharecropper's Senate Testimony Was Silenced by Lyndon Johnson and Changed the Democratic Party Forever
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977, born in Sunflower County, Mississippi, the 20th child of sharecropper parents) is the central figure of the Mississippi civil rights narrative in the museum's collection and arguably the most significant political organizer produced by the Mississippi movement. Hamer's story: she was a sharecropper on a Sunflower County plantation (the property of W.D. Marlow) until 1962, when she attempted to register to vote at age 44 -- was evicted from the plantation within hours of returning from the courthouse, was shot at, and was subsequently arrested and severely beaten by police in Winona, Mississippi (June 1963), suffering injuries that affected her health permanently. Rather than retreating, Hamer became the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's most powerful spokesperson: at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, she addressed the Credentials Committee in a nationally televised statement (her testimony was interrupted by President Lyndon Johnson, who called an impromptu presidential press conference to preempt the live broadcast -- Johnson understood that Hamer's testimony would force a confrontation over the all-white Mississippi delegation's legitimacy). Johnson's attempt to suppress Hamer's testimony backfired: the major networks broadcast her full testimony that evening in delayed replay, and her words ('Is this America? The land of the free and the home of the brave?') became one of the defining statements of the civil rights era. The challenge failed to seat the MFDP delegates in 1964, but the compromise offered (2 at-large seats with no voting power) was rejected by Hamer on the convention floor. The 1964 challenge directly led to the Democratic Party's McGovern-Fraser Commission reforms (1969-1972) requiring proportional representation and broader delegate inclusion -- transforming how American political parties select presidential nominees.
Medgar Evers Home National Monument -- The House Where the NAACP's Most Effective Mississippi Field Secretary Was Assassinated on June 12, 1963
The Driveway Where Byron De La Beckwith Fired the Shot, the 30-Year Legal Battle for Justice, and Why Medgar Evers Remains Mississippi's Most Significant Civil Rights MartyrThe Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument (2332 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive, Jackson, in the Elraine neighborhood -- the ranch-style house built in 1956 by Medgar Evers and his wife Myrlie for their family, designated a National Historic Landmark 1997 and a National Monument 2023) is one of the most historically significant civil rights sites in the United States and the most important single-structure civil rights landmark in Mississippi. Medgar Evers (1925-1963, born in Decatur, Mississippi; World War II veteran, Normandy campaign; NAACP Mississippi Field Secretary from 1954) was the most effective civil rights organizer in Mississippi from 1954-1963, investigating and publicizing racial murders (including the 1955 Emmett Till murder in Money, Mississippi), organizing voter registration drives, coordinating school desegregation cases, and serving as the primary local contact for the national NAACP and the Kennedy administration. On June 12, 1963 -- hours after President Kennedy's nationally televised address calling for civil rights legislation -- Medgar Evers pulled into the driveway of his home on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive, was shot in the back by a .30-06 caliber rifle bullet fired by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith from a honeysuckle thicket across the street, and died 50 minutes later at University Hospital. He was 37 years old. His three children (Darrell, 9; Reena, 8; Van Dyke, 3) witnessed his death on the driveway. De La Beckwith was tried twice in 1964 by all-white Mississippi juries, with both trials ending in hung juries. He was not convicted until 1994 -- 31 years after the murder -- following a third prosecution by Hinds County District Attorney Bobby DeLaughter after Myrlie Evers-Williams and journalist Jerry Mitchell uncovered new evidence.
The 31-Year Campaign to Convict Byron De La Beckwith -- Myrlie Evers-Williams, Jerry Mitchell, and the 1994 Murder Trial That Proved Mississippi Courts Could Deliver Justice
The 31-year gap between Medgar Evers's 1963 murder and Byron De La Beckwith's 1994 conviction is one of American legal history's most protracted cases of racial justice delayed and ultimately delivered, and its resolution depended on the persistence of three people: Myrlie Evers-Williams (Medgar's widow, who pursued the case for 31 years, ultimately becoming NAACP national board chair from 1995-1998); Jerry Mitchell (the Clarion-Ledger investigative journalist whose 1989 reporting revealed that the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission -- a state-funded espionage and intimidation agency targeting civil rights workers -- had screened jurors in De La Beckwith's 1964 trials to ensure he would not be convicted); and Bobby DeLaughter (Hinds County assistant DA who undertook the third prosecution in 1993-1994, securing a murder conviction from a racially diverse jury on February 5, 1994 -- 31 years and 8 months after the murder). De La Beckwith was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in prison in January 2001. The Evers murder case's resolution inspired several similar reopened civil rights-era cases in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia in the 1990s-2000s, establishing the principle that statutes of limitations do not apply to murder and that new evidence can justify prosecution regardless of how much time has passed.
Eudora Welty House and Garden -- The Pulitzer Prize Winner's Tudor Revival Home Where She Wrote All Her Major Works for 76 Years
The Woman Who Wrote the American Short Story's Finest Sentences, Who Never Left Jackson, and Whose Garden Still Looks Almost Exactly the Way She Left It in 2001The Eudora Welty House and Garden (1119 Pinehurst Street, Belhaven neighborhood, Jackson -- the 1925 Tudor Revival house where Eudora Welty (1909-2001) lived for 76 of her 92 years, designated a National Historic Landmark and Mississippi Literary Landmark, managed by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History; guided tours available Tuesday-Friday, reservation required) preserves one of American literature's most intimate writer's homes: the house where Welty wrote 'A Worn Path,' 'Why I Live at the P.O.,' 'The Wide Net,' 'The Optimist's Daughter' (1972 Pulitzer Prize), and 'One Writer's Beginnings' (1984 -- Harvard's Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, one of the bestselling literary memoirs in American publishing history) in the same upstairs bedroom, at the same desk, looking out the same window at the garden her mother planted in 1925. Welty is universally regarded as one of the greatest American short story writers -- the short story's deepest craftsperson since Chekhov, in the view of many literary critics -- and her refusal to leave Jackson (she received multiple offers of named chairs at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, all declined) was not provincial isolation but a deliberate artistic choice: Welty believed that a writer's primary material was the specific place and people she knew most deeply, and Jackson's particular social landscape (white Southern upper-middle class of the 1930s-1970s) was her material. The garden (restored to the 1940s-1950s plantings documented in Welty's own garden notebooks and photographs) is open during tour season and represents one of the finest examples of a Mississippi Cottage garden in the state.
Eudora Welty's Method -- The Index Cards, the Scissors, and the Practice That Made Her American Literature's Most Careful Sentence-Maker
Eudora Welty's writing method (documented in her papers at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, in her published essays 'The Eye of the Story' and 'One Writer's Beginnings,' and in multiple Paris Review interviews) was intensely physical and spatial in a way that few 20th-century writers have described. Welty wrote her stories in longhand on paper, then typed them, then physically cut the typed paragraphs apart with scissors and pinned the sections to a board with straight pins, rearranging the narrative sequence and structure until the story's internal logic felt right. The method was not a quirk -- it reflected Welty's conviction (developed through years of writing and her period as a WPA photographer in Mississippi in the 1930s, documented in her book 'One Time, One Place') that a story's structure was a spatial problem as much as a temporal one, and that a writer needed to see the sequence of events as a physical arrangement before the story's meaning became clear. Welty's descriptions of looking at her pinned-up pages and physically feeling which section needed to move are among the most precise accounts of literary composition in American letters. The manuscript papers at MDAH preserve examples of Welty's pinned-page manuscripts with the pin holes still visible in the paper. The house at 1119 Pinehurst Street preserves the upstairs bedroom desk where most of this work was done.
Mississippi Museum of Natural Science and the Mississippi Blues Trail -- The State's Natural Heritage and the Musical Tradition That Changed the World
The Finest Freshwater Aquarium in the Deep South and the Trail of Historical Markers That Traces Blues Music from the Delta to the World StageMississippi Museum of Natural Science (2148 Riverside Drive, Jackson, in LeFleur's Bluff State Park -- 73,000 square feet, managed by Mississippi Museum of Natural Science; the finest natural history and natural science institution in the state) houses a 100,000-gallon freshwater aquarium system (the largest freshwater exhibit in the Southeast US -- displaying the complete fish fauna of Mississippi's rivers and lakes, including massive alligator gar, paddlefish, shovelhead catfish, and bowfin alongside freshwater turtles, hellbenders, and aquatic birds) alongside natural history exhibits documenting Mississippi's extraordinary biological diversity (the state's 6 distinct ecoregions -- Delta, Hills, Pinelands, Maritime Forests, Gulf Coast Marshes, and Appalachian Foothills -- support an unusually high biodiversity for the Southeast). The Mississippi Blues Trail (a network of 200+ historical markers across the state, managed by the Mississippi Blues Commission, headquartered in Cleveland, MS -- markers in Jackson include sites associated with Sonny Boy Williamson II, Tommy Johnson, and the founding of Malaco Records) is one of the most important cultural tourism assets in the American South: documenting the geographic origins, biographical details, and historical context of the musicians who created the Delta Blues (Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Albert King, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, and dozens more) in the specific Mississippi places where the music was created, performed, and recorded. Jackson's position on the Blues Trail: the city was the home base for the Malaco Records studio (the most important soul, gospel, and blues recording label of the 1970s-1990s, recording Z.Z. Hill, Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Denise LaSalle, and Little Milton at its North State Street studio).
The Delta Blues -- How the Music of Mississippi Sharecroppers Became the Foundation of Rock and Roll, Jazz, R&B, and Every Major American Popular Music Genre of the 20th Century
The Delta Blues (originating in the cotton fields and juke joints of the Mississippi Delta -- the flat alluvial plain between the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, from Vicksburg north to Memphis) is the most consequential American music genre in global cultural history: every major form of American popular music that has achieved international influence -- rock and roll, rhythm and blues, jazz, soul, hip-hop -- traces its structural foundations directly or indirectly to the Delta Blues of the 1920s-1940s. The chain of influence is documentable with precision: (1) British blues musicians of the late 1950s-early 1960s (Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, John Mayall) discovered Chess Records recordings of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Sonny Boy Williamson and were transformed by them -- creating British R&B, which became rock and roll; (2) Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Little Richard (the creators of rock and roll in the early-mid 1950s) explicitly cited Delta and Chicago Blues as their primary musical influences; (3) The jazz harmony of the 1940s bebop era (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie) built on the blues harmonic structure (the I-IV-V progression and its modal variations) that originated in Delta blues; (4) Soul music's vocal intensity (James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding) traces directly to the gospel-blues vocal tradition of Mississippi's Black Baptist and Pentecostal churches. Mississippi's pride in being the birthplace of this musical tradition is expressed in the Blues Trail markers, which can be found from Tunica to the Gulf Coast, from the Delta to Hattiesburg -- each one documenting the specific geographic connection between an individual musician and the Mississippi landscape that shaped the music.
How to Find Cheap Flights to Jackson
Jackson Has Good Fare Competition -- Compare Delta, American, and Southwest for the Best Price
Delta (via ATL), American (via DFW), and Southwest (BWI, DAL, DEN) all serve Jackson with genuine price competition. Fares vary significantly by carrier and connection point. Southwest's two-free-bags policy adds value beyond the base fare. FareOptic compares all carriers simultaneously -- a 15-minute search often reveals $50-100 fare differences on the same travel dates.
Spring (March-May) and Fall (October-November) Have the Best Jackson Weather and Value
Jackson's subtropical climate makes spring (March-May, azalea season, 70-80°F) and fall (October-November, 65-75°F) the most comfortable visiting seasons. Summers are hot and humid (95-100°F July-August). The Civil Rights Museum, Eudora Welty House, and Medgar Evers Home are year-round attractions unaffected by season.
Delta Blues Day Trips Require a Car -- Plan a Mississippi Road Trip from Jackson Airport
The Mississippi Delta (the 200-mile alluvial plain north of Vicksburg where Delta Blues originated -- Greenville, Cleveland, Indianola, Clarksdale) is 90-130 miles north of Jackson via US-61 (the 'Blues Highway'). Jackson serves as the best airport gateway for a Delta Blues road trip. Reserve a rental car at JAN and plan 2-3 days for the Jackson + Delta circuit (Vicksburg battlefield, Port Gibson, Indianola, Clarksdale, Oxford).
Mississippi Museum of Natural Science and Civil Rights Museum Are Best as Combined Days
Both the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (typically 3-4 hours) and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science (2-3 hours) are in Jackson proper, 2 miles apart. The Eudora Welty House (requires advance reservation) is in the Belhaven neighborhood, 1 mile from the museum campus. A 3-day Jackson itinerary comfortably covers all three institutions plus the Medgar Evers Home and a Blues Trail orientation.
Airlines Flying to Jackson (JAN)
Delta Air Lines
ATL Hub Connections to JAN -- Delta's Primary Jackson Service and the Fastest Gateway from the East Coast and SoutheastDelta Air Lines connects Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport (JAN) via Atlanta (ATL, 1h 20m nonstop -- multiple daily flights), providing access to Delta's full domestic and international network. Delta's ATL hub is the natural Southeast gateway for Jackson, given Atlanta's position as the dominant air hub for the entire Southeast US. Delta is the largest carrier at JAN by frequency and connects Jackson to New York, Boston, and international destinations through ATL.
Key Routes
ATL to JAN (1h 20m nonstop; JFK to JAN (via ATL; BOS to JAN (via ATL; MCO to JAN (via ATL; LAX to JAN (via ATL or SLC; DTW to JAN (via ATL
American Airlines
DFW and CLT Hub Connections to JAN -- American's Jackson Service for Texas, the Southwest, and Mid-Atlantic TravelersAmerican Airlines is the largest carrier at JAN by seat count, operating DFW-JAN nonstop service (2h 05m) from its largest hub and CLT-JAN connections through American Eagle regional jets. DFW-JAN is particularly important for the Texas-Mississippi business and family connection -- Mississippi's significant diaspora in Dallas and Houston creates strong demand for affordable DFW-JAN service. American also serves JAN from Chicago O'Hare (ORD), Charlotte (CLT), and Philadelphia (PHL).
Key Routes
DFW to JAN (2h 05m nonstop; CLT to JAN (via DFW or PHL; ORD to JAN (via DFW; PHL to JAN (via DFW or CLT; MIA to JAN (via DFW; LAX to JAN (via DFW
Southwest Airlines
Low-Cost Nonstop Service to JAN -- Southwest's Jackson Routes for Budget Travelers from Baltimore, Denver, and FloridaSouthwest Airlines operates nonstop service to Jackson (JAN) from Baltimore/Washington (BWI), Denver (DEN), Dallas Love Field (DAL), and select Florida airports. Southwest is typically the lowest-cost option at JAN on competitive routes and is particularly valued by Mississippi state government employees and university travelers (Mississippi State Legislature sessions bring significant air travel demand to JAN). Southwest's no-change-fee policy makes it attractive for government and business travelers with uncertain schedules.
Key Routes
BWI to JAN nonstop; DAL to JAN nonstop; DEN to JAN nonstop; MCO to JAN (seasonal; TPA to JAN (seasonal -- check Southwest.com for complete schedule
United Airlines
EWR and IAH Hub Connections to JAN -- United's Jackson Service for Houston and New York TravelersUnited Airlines connects Jackson via Houston Intercontinental (IAH, 1h 40m nonstop) and Newark (EWR, via IAH or ORD). IAH-JAN is a significant route given Houston's substantial Mississippi-origin population and the strong energy industry connection between Houston's oil and gas sector and Mississippi's Gulf Coast and Delta agricultural energy economy. United's EWR-JAN serves New York-area travelers and government affairs professionals traveling to the Mississippi state capital.
Key Routes
IAH to JAN (1h 40m nonstop; EWR to JAN (via IAH; ORD to JAN (via IAH or EWR; DEN to JAN (via IAH; LAX to JAN (via IAH
Things to Do in Jackson and the Mississippi Delta
Essential Info for Your Jackson Trip
State
Mississippi. Jackson is the state capital on the Pearl River, 45 miles east of Vicksburg and 185 miles south of Memphis.
Airport
JAN -- Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport (8 miles from downtown Jackson)
Blues Day Trips
Clarksdale (Delta Blues Museum): 130 miles north via US-61. Indianola (B.B. King Museum): 120 miles north. Both are 2-hour drives from JAN.
Currency
USD -- US Dollar
Time Zone
CST (UTC-6) / CDT (UTC-5) in summer
Civil Rights Museum
222 North St. Tue-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm. $12 adults (combined ticket with Museum of Mississippi History). Allow 3-4 hours.
Eudora Welty House
1119 Pinehurst St. Tours Tue-Fri by reservation only. Call 601-353-7762. $12 adults. Reserve at least 2 weeks ahead in spring/fall.
Emergency Number
911
Most Popular Airlines
Best Airlines for Domestic & International Routes
Frequently Asked Questions on Flights to Jackson
Everything you need to know about booking cheap flights to Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport (JAN) and visiting Jackson, Mississippi
What airport serves Jackson Mississippi?
Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport (JAN) is 8 miles from downtown Jackson. Delta, American, United, and Southwest serve JAN with nonstop service from Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Charlotte, Baltimore, and Denver. All major rental car companies operate at JAN. A rental car is strongly recommended for Jackson and Mississippi road trips.
What is Jackson Mississippi known for?
Jackson is known for: (1) the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (2017 -- one of the South's most comprehensive civil rights institutions); (2) the Medgar Evers Home National Monument (site of the NAACP leader's 1963 assassination); (3) the Eudora Welty House (the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's home); (4) as the gateway city for the Mississippi Delta Blues Trail (Clarksdale, Indianola, Greenville -- 90-130 miles north); and (5) as Mississippi's state capital with the 1839 Old Capitol Museum.
Is Jackson a good base for visiting the Mississippi Delta?
Yes -- JAN is the best-served airport for Mississippi Delta access. Clarksdale (the Delta Blues capital, home of the Delta Blues Museum and Crossroads Blues Society) is 130 miles north of Jackson via US-61 (the Blues Highway). Indianola (B.B. King Museum) is 120 miles north. Vicksburg National Military Park is 45 miles west. A Jackson-based 4-5 day Mississippi road trip can cover the Civil Rights Museum, Evers Home, Vicksburg battlefield, and the Delta Blues circuit.
What is the best time of year to visit Jackson?
Spring (March-May, 70-80°F, azalea and dogwood season) and fall (October-November, 65-75°F) offer the best weather. Mississippi summers (June-September) are very hot and humid (95-100°F). The Civil Rights Museum, Eudora Welty House, and Medgar Evers Home are year-round attractions. The Delta Blues Festival (Greenville, September) and Hot Blues on the Hill (Jackson, October) are the best blues event seasons.
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