A series of programs and exhibits during February is how Vicksburg National Military Park will mark Black History Month.

The theme is A Free People on a Free River: The African-American Experience in Occupied Vicksburg.

The programs will last 15 minutes and be presented every half-hour in rotation from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturdays beneath the pavilion of the USS Cairo.

* Saturday, Feb. 7: The United States Colored Troops, black combat troops enlisted by the Union army after the Emancipation Proclamation; presented by Rodney Wince, a student at Jackson State University and a seasonal interpretive ranger.

* Feb. 14: Contrabands and Freedmen, about the black civilian experience in Vicksburg during and after the Civil War; presented by Rodney West, a park ranger.

* Feb. 21: A program about white Southerners’ responses to the liberation of their former black slaves and changes in the social order; presented by Will Wilson, a JSU graduate student and park volunteer.

For information, call 601-636-0583.