.

USA

Mississippi /ˌmɪsɨˈsɪpi/ is a state located in the Southern United States.

Jackson is the state capital and largest city, with a population of around 175,000 people. The state overall has a population of around 3 million people. Mississippi is the 32nd most extensive and the 31st most populous of the 50 United States.

The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area. Its riverfront areas were cleared for cotton cultivation in the antebellum era, but the bottomlands were cleared mostly by freedmen after the war. Blacks made up two-thirds of the property owners in the Delta by the end of the 19th century, but timber and railroad companies acquired much of the land. Clearing altered the ecology of the Delta, increasing the severity of flooding along the Mississippi. Much land is now held by agribusinesses. A largely rural state with agricultural areas dominated by industrial farms, Mississippi is ranked low or last among the states in such measures as health, educational attainment, and median household income.[5][6][7] The state's catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States.[8]

Map of Mississippi, Joseph Hutchins Colton

Since the 1930s and the Great Migration, Mississippi has been majority white, albeit with the highest percentage of black residents of any U.S. state. From the early 19th century to that period, it was majority black, a population composed largely of African-American slaves before the American Civil War. In the first half of the 20th century, a total of nearly 400,000 rural blacks left the state for work and opportunities in northern and midwestern cities, with another wave of migration around World War II to West Coast cities. In 2010, 37% of Mississippians were African-Americans, the highest percentage of African Americans in a U.S. state. African Americans are still a majority in many counties of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, an area of historic settlement during the plantation era. Since 2011 Mississippi has been ranked the most religious state in the country.[9]

Etymology

The name of the state is derived from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary. Settlers named it after the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River").

Geography
Major highways and waterways in Mississippi
Bottomland hardwood swamp near Ashland, Mississippi

Mississippi is bordered on the north by Tennessee, on the east by Alabama, on the south by Louisiana and a narrow coast on the Gulf of Mexico; and on the west, across the Mississippi River, by Louisiana and Arkansas.

In addition to its namesake, major rivers in Mississippi include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake, and Grenada Lake. The largest lake in Mississippi is Sardis Lake.

The state of Mississippi is entirely composed of lowlands, the highest point being Woodall Mountain, in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, 807 feet (246 m) above sea level. The lowest point is sea level at the Gulf coast. The mean elevation in the state is 300 feet (91 m) above sea level.

Most of Mississippi is part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain. The coastal plain is generally composed of low hills, such as the Pine Hills in the south and the North Central Hills. The Pontotoc Ridge and the Fall Line Hills in the northeast have somewhat higher elevations. Yellow-brown loess soil is found in the western parts of the state. The northeast is a region of fertile black earth that extends into the Alabama Black Belt.

The coastline includes large bays at Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, and Pascagoula. It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico proper by the shallow Mississippi Sound, which is partially sheltered by Petit Bois Island, Horn Island, East and West Ship Islands, Deer Island, Round Island, and Cat Island.

The northwest remainder of the state consists of the Mississippi Delta, a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. The plain is narrow in the south and widens north of Vicksburg. The region has rich soil, partly made up of silt which had been regularly deposited by the flood waters of the Mississippi River.

Areas under the management of the National Park Service include:[10]

Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site near Baldwyn
Gulf Islands National Seashore
Natchez National Historical Park in Natchez
Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail in Tupelo
Natchez Trace Parkway
Tupelo National Battlefield in Tupelo
Vicksburg National Military Park and Cemetery in Vicksburg

Major cities and towns
Jackson, Mississippi
Northwest view of Gulfport Harbor Square Commercial Historic District, Gulfport, Mississippi
Strawberry Patch Park in Madison, Mississippi
Map with all counties and many cities and towns labeled

Mississippi City Population Rankings of at least 50,000 (United States Census Bureau as of 2010):[11]

Jackson (173,514)
Gulfport (67,793)

Mississippi City Population Rankings of at least 20,000 but fewer than 50,000 (United States Census Bureau as of 2010):[11]

Southaven (48,982)
Hattiesburg (45,989)
Biloxi (44,054)
Vicksburg (42,856)
Meridian (41,198)
Tupelo (34,546)
Greenville (34,400)
Olive Branch (33,484)
Horn Lake (26,066)
Clinton (25,216)
Pearl (25,092)
Madison (24,149)
Ridgeland (24,047)
Starkville (23,888)
Columbus (23,604)
Pascagoula (22,392)
Brandon (21,705)

Mississippi City Population Rankings of at least 10,000 but fewer than 20,000 (United States Census Bureau as of 2010):[11]

Oxford (18,916)
Gautier (18,572)
Laurel (18,540)
Clarksdale (17,962)
Ocean Springs (17,461)
Natchez (15,792)
Greenwood (15,205)
Long Beach (14,792)
Corinth (14,573)
Hernando (14,090)
Moss Point (13,704)
Canton (13,189)
Grenada (13,092)
McComb (12,790)
Brookhaven (12,513)
Cleveland (12,334)
Byram (11,489)
Yazoo City (11,403)
West Point (11,307)
Picayune (10,878)
Indianola (10,683)
Petal (10,454)

(See: Lists of cities, towns and villages, census-designated places, metropolitan areas, micropolitan areas, and counties in Mississippi)
Climate
Montgomery County in autumn

Mississippi has a humid subtropical climate with long summers and short, mild winters. Temperatures average about 81°F (about 27°C) in July and about 48 °F (about 9 °C) in January. The temperature varies little statewide in the summer; however, in winter, the region near Mississippi Sound is significantly warmer than the inland portion of the state. The recorded temperature in Mississippi has ranged from −19 °F (−28.3 °C), in 1966, at Corinth in the northeast, to 115 °F (46.1 °C), in 1930, at Holly Springs in the north. Heavy snowfall is possible across the state, such as during the New Year's Eve 1963 snowstorm. Yearly precipitation generally increases from north to south, with the regions closer to the Gulf being the most humid. Thus, Clarksdale, in the northwest, gets about 50 inches (about 1,270 mm) of precipitation annually and Biloxi, in the south, about 61 inches (about 1,550 mm). Small amounts of snow fall in northern and central Mississippi; snow is occasional in the southern part of the state.

The late summer and fall is the seasonal period of risk for hurricanes moving inland from the Gulf of Mexico, especially in the southern part of the state. Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed 238 people in the state, were the most devastating hurricanes to hit the state. Both caused nearly total storm surge destruction of structures in and around Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula.

As in the rest of the Deep South, thunderstorms are common in Mississippi, especially in the southern part of the state. On average, Mississippi has around 27 tornadoes annually; the northern part of the state has more tornadoes earlier in the year and the southern part a higher frequency later in the year. Two of the five deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history have occurred in the state. These storms struck Natchez, in southwest Mississippi (see The Great Natchez Tornado) and Tupelo, in the northeast corner of the state. About seven F5 tornadoes have been recorded in the state.
Monthly Normal High and Low Temperatures (°F) For Various Mississippi Cities
City Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Gulfport 61/43 64/46 70/52 77/59 84/66 89/72 91/74 91/74 87/70 79/60 70/51 63/45
Jackson 55/35 60/38 68/45 75/52 82/61 89/68 91/71 91/70 86/65 77/52 66/43 58/37
Meridian 58/35 63/38 70/44 77/50 84/60 90/67 93/70 93/70 88/64 78/51 68/43 60/37
Tupelo 50/30 56/34 65/41 74/48 81/58 88/66 91/70 91/68 85/62 75/49 63/40 54/33
[4]
Ecology
The Mississippi state sign located on Interstate 20.

Mississippi is heavily forested, with over half of the state's area covered by wild trees, including mostly pine, as well as cottonwood, elm, hickory, oak, pecan, sweetgum and tupelo.
Ecological problems
Flooding

Due to seasonal flooding, possible from December to June, the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers created a fertile floodplain in the Mississippi Delta, including tributaries. To try to prevent flooding of land cultivated for cotton crops, planters used temporary workers to build levees along the Mississippi River to control flooding. They built on top of the natural levees that formed from dirt deposited after the river flooded. As cultivation of cotton increased in the Delta, planters hired Irish laborers, who immigrated in high numbers in the 1840s as a result of the Great Famine, to ditch and drain their land.

The state took over levee building from 1858 to 1861, accomplishing it through contractors and hired labor. In those years, planters considered their slaves too valuable to hire out for such dangerous work. Contractors hired gangs of Irish immigrant laborers to build levees and sometimes clear land. Many of the Irish were relatively recent immigrants from the famine years who were struggling to get established.[12] Before the American Civil War, the earthwork levees averaged six feet in height, although in some areas they reached twenty feet.

Flooding has been an integral part of Mississippi history, but clearing of the land for cultivation and to supply wood fuel for steamboats took away the absorption of trees and undergrowth. The banks of the river were denuded, becoming unstable and changing the character of the river. After the Civil War, major floods swept down the valley in 1865, 1867, 1874 and 1882. Such floods regularly overwhelmed levees damaged by Confederate and Union fighting during the war, as well as those constructed after the war.[13] In 1877, the state created the Mississippi Levee District for southern counties.

In 1879, the United States Congress created the Mississippi River Commission, whose responsibilities included aiding state levee boards in the construction of levees. Both white and black transient workers were hired to build the levees in the late 19th century. By 1882, levees averaged seven feet in height, but many in the southern Delta were severely tested by the flood that year.[13] After the 1882 flood, the levee system was expanded. In 1884, the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Levee District was established to oversee levee construction and maintenance in the northern Delta counties; also included were some counties in Arkansas.[14]

Flooding overwhelmed northwestern Mississippi in 1912–1913, causing heavy damage to the levee districts. Regional losses and the Mississippi River Levee Association's lobbying for a flood control bill helped gain passage of national bills in 1917 and 1923 to provide federal matching funds for local levee districts, on a scale of 2:1. Although U.S. participation in World War I interrupted funding of levees, the second round of funding helped raise the average height of levees in the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta to 22 feet (6.7 m) in the 1920s.[15] Scientists now understand the levees have increased the severity of flooding, and the region was severely damaged due to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. There were losses of millions of dollars in property, stock and crops. The most damage occurred in the lower Delta, including Washington and Bolivar counties.[16]

Even as scientific knowledge about the Mississippi River has grown, upstream development and the consequences of the levees have caused more severe flooding in some years. Scientists now understand that the widespread clearing of land and building of the levees have changed the nature of the river. Such work removed the natural protection and absorption of wetlands and forest cover, strengthening the river's current. The state and federal governments have been struggling for the best approaches to restore some natural habitats in order to best interact with the original riverine ecology.
History
Main article: History of Mississippi
Mississippi state symbols
Flag of Mississippi.svg
The Flag of Mississippi
Seal of Mississippi (1818-2014).svg
The Seal of Mississippi
Animal and Plant insignia
Bird(s) Mockingbird (1944)
Wood Duck (1974)
Butterfly Spicebush Swallowtail (1991)
Fish Largemouth bass (1974)
Flower(s) Magnolia (1952)
Coreopsis (Tickseed) (1991)
Insect Honey bee (1980)
Mammal(s) White-tailed deer (1974)
Red Fox (1997)
Bottlenose dolphin (1974)
Reptile American Alligator (2005)
Tree Magnolia (1938)
Inanimate insignia
Beverage Milk (1984)
Dance American folk dance (1995)
Fossil Basilosaurus (1981)
Zygorhiza (1981)
Rock Petrified wood (1976)
Shell Oyster (1974)
Slogan(s) Virtute et armis
Soil Natchez silt loam (2003)
Song(s) "Go, Mississippi" (1962)
Toy Teddy bear (2003)
Other Grand Opera House of Meridian (1993)
Tupelo Auto Museum (2003)
Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum (1972)
Route marker(s)
Mississippi Route Marker
State Quarter
Quarter of Mississippi
Released in 2002
Lists of United States state symbols

Near 10,000 BC Native Americans or Paleo-Indians arrived in what today is referred to as the American South.[17] Paleoindians in the South were hunter-gatherers who pursued the megafauna that became extinct following the end of the Pleistocene age. In the Mississippi Delta, Native American settlements and agricultural fields were developed on the natural levees, higher ground in the proximity of rivers. The Native Americans developed extensive fields near their permanent villages. Together with other practices, they created some localized deforestation but did not alter the ecology of the Mississippi Delta as a whole.[18]

After thousands of years, succeeding cultures of the Woodland and Mississippian culture eras developed rich and complex agricultural societies, in which surplus supported the development of specialized trades. Both were mound builder cultures. Those of the Mississippian culture were the largest and most complex, constructed beginning about 950CE. The peoples had a trading network spanning the continent from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast. Their large earthworks, which expressed their cosmology of political and religious concepts, still stand throughout the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys.
Choctaw Village near the Chefuncte, by Francois Bernard, 1869, Peabody Museum - Harvard University. The women are preparing dye in order to color cane strips for making baskets.

Descendant Native American tribes of the Mississippian culture in the Southeast include the Chickasaw and Choctaw. Other tribes who inhabited the territory of Mississippi (and whose names were honored by colonists in local towns) include the Natchez, the Yazoo, and the Biloxi.

The first major European expedition into the territory that became Mississippi was that of the Spanish explorer, Hernando de Soto, who passed through the northeast part of the state in 1540, in his second expedition to the New World.
Colonial era

In April 1699, French colonists established the first European settlement at Fort Maurepas (also known as Old Biloxi), built in the vicinity of present-day Ocean Springs on the Gulf Coast. It was settled by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville. In 1716, the French founded Natchez on the Mississippi River (as Fort Rosalie); it became the dominant town and trading post of the area. The French called the greater territory "New France"; the Spanish continued to claim part of the Gulf coast area (east of Mobile Bay) of present-day southern Alabama, in addition to the entire area of present-day Florida.

Through the eighteenth century, the area was ruled variously by Spanish, French, and British colonial governments. The colonists imported African slaves as laborers. Under French and Spanish rule, there developed a class of free people of color (gens de couleur libres), mostly multiracial descendants of European men and enslaved women, and their children. In the early days the French and Spanish colonists were chiefly men. Even as more European women joined the settlements, the men had interracial unions among women of African descent (and increasingly, also European descent), both before and after marriages to European women. Often the European men would help their multiracial children get educated or have apprenticeships for trades, and sometimes settled property on them; they often freed the mothers and their children if enslaved, as part of contracts of plaçage. With this social capital, the free people of color became artisans, and sometimes educated merchants and property owners, forming a third class between the Europeans and most enslaved Africans in the French and Spanish settlements, although not so large a community as in New Orleans. After Great Britain's victory in the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War), the French surrendered the Mississippi area to them under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763).
Pushmataha, Choctaw Principal Chief
United States territory

After the American Revolution, Britain ceded this area to the new United States of America. The Mississippi Territory was organized on April 7, 1798, from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina to the United States. Their original colonial charters theoretically extended west to the Pacific Ocean. The Mississippi Territory was later twice expanded to include disputed territory claimed by both the United States and Spain.

From 1800 to about 1830, the United States purchased some lands (Treaty of Doak's Stand) from Native American tribes for new settlements of European Americans, who were mostly migrants from other Southern states, particularly Virginia and North Carolina, where soils were exhausted.[19] On September 27, 1830, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed between the U.S. Government and the Choctaw. The Choctaw agreed to sell their traditional homelands in Mississippi and Alabama, for compensation and removal to reservations in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). This opened up land for sale to European-American immigrant settlement. Article 14 in the treaty allowed those Choctaw who chose to remain in the state to become U.S. citizens, the second major non-European ethnic group to do so (the Cherokee were the first).[20][21] Today approximately 9,500 Choctaw live in Neshoba, Newton, Leake, and Jones counties. Federally recognized tribes include the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

Many slaveholders brought slaves with them or purchased them through the domestic slave trade, especially in New Orleans. They transported nearly one million slaves to the Deep South, including Mississippi, in a forced internal migration that broke up many slave families of the Upper South, where planters were selling excess slaves. The Southerners imposed slave laws and restricted the rights of free blacks, according to their view of white supremacy.

Beginning in 1822, slaves in Mississippi were protected by law from cruel and unusual punishment by their owners.[22] Southern slave codes made the willful killing of a slave illegal in most cases.[23] For example, the 1860 Mississippi case of Oliver v. State charged the defendant with murdering his own slave.[24]
Front of D'Evereux. Built in 1840, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Statehood, 1817-1861

On December 10, 1817, Mississippi was the 20th state admitted to the Union. David Holmes was elected as the first governor of the state.[25] Plantations were developed primarily along the major rivers, where waterfront gave them access to the major transportation routes. This is also where early towns developed, linked by the steamboats that carried commercial products and crops to markets. The backcountry remained largely undeveloped frontier until it was cleared by freedmen during Reconstruction and later.[26]

When cotton was king during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners—especially those of the Delta and Black Belt central regions—became wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil, the high price of cotton on the international market, and their assets in slaves. They used the profits to buy more cotton land and more slaves. The planters' dependence on hundreds of thousands of slaves for labor and the severe wealth imbalances among whites, played strong roles both in state politics and in planters' support for secession. The state was thinly settled, with population concentrated in the riverfront areas and towns.

By 1860, the enslaved African-American population numbered 436,631 or 55% of the state's total of 791,305. There were fewer than 1000 free people of color.[27] The relatively low population of the state before the Civil War reflected the fact that land and villages were developed only along the riverfronts, which formed the main transportation corridors. Ninety percent of the Delta bottomlands were frontier and undeveloped.[26] The state needed many more settlers for development.
Civil War to 20th century
Confederate dead after the Battle of Corinth. Photo taken October 5, 1862
The legislature of the State of Mississippi in 1890.

On January 9, 1861, Mississippi became the second state to declare its secession from the Union, and it was one of the founding members of the Confederate States. During the war, Union and Confederate forces struggled over dominance on the Mississippi River, critical to supply routes and commerce. More than 80,000 Mississippians fought in the Civil War, and casualties were extremely heavy. Union General Ulysses S. Grant's long siege of Vicksburg finally gained the Union control in 1863.

In the postwar period, freedmen withdrew from white-run churches to set up independent congregations. The majority of blacks left the Southern Baptist Church, sharply reducing its membership. They created independent black Baptist congregations. By 1895 they had established numerous black Baptist state associations and the National Baptist Convention of black churches.[28]

In addition, independent black denominations, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (established in New York City), sent missionaries to the South in the postwar years. They quickly attracted hundreds of thousands of converts and founded new churches across the South. Southern congregations brought their own influences to those denominations as well.[28][29]

During Reconstruction, the first Mississippi constitutional convention in 1868, with delegates both black and white, framed a constitution whose major elements would last for 22 years.[30] The convention was the first political organization in the state to include African-American representatives, 17 among the 100 members (32 counties had black majorities at the time). Some among the black delegates were freedmen, but others were educated free blacks who had migrated from the North. The convention adopted universal suffrage; did away with property qualifications for suffrage or for office, a change that also benefited poor whites; provided for the state's first public school system; forbade race distinctions in the possession and inheritance of property; and prohibited limiting civil rights in travel.[30] Under the terms of Reconstruction, Mississippi was restored to the Union on February 23, 1870.

Because the Mississippi Delta contained so much fertile bottomland that had not been developed before the Civil War, 90 percent of the land was still frontier. After the Civil War, tens of thousands of migrants were attracted to the area by higher wages offered by planters trying to develop land. In addition, black and white workers could earn money by clearing the land and raising timber, and eventually advance to ownership. The new farmers included many freedmen, who achieved unusually high rates of land ownership in the Mississippi bottomlands by the late 19th century. In the 1870s and 1880s, many black farmers succeeded in gaining land ownership.[26]

Around the start of the 20th century, two-thirds of the Mississippi farmers who owned land in the Delta were African American.[26] Many had become overextended with debt during the falling cotton prices of the difficult years of the late 19th century. Cotton prices fell throughout the decades following the Civil War. As another agricultural depression lowered cotton prices into the 1890s, however, numerous African-American farmers finally had to sell their land to pay off debts, thus losing the land which they had developed by personal labor.[26]

Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1875, after a year of expanded violence against blacks and intimidation of whites in what was called the "white line" campaign, finally based on asserting white supremacy. Democratic whites became well armed. From 1874 to the elections of 1875, they pressured whites to join the Democrats, and conducted violence against blacks in at least 15 known "riots" in cities around the state to intimidate blacks and suppress their voting. They killed a total of 150 blacks, although other estimates plate the death toll at twice as many. A total of three white Republicans and five white Democrats were reported killed. In rural areas, deaths of blacks could be covered up. Riots (better described as massacres of blacks) took place in Vicksburg, Clinton, Macon and in their counties, as well-armed whites broke up black meetings and lynched known black leaders, destroying local political organizations.[31] Seeing the success of this deliberate "Mississippi Plan", South Carolina and other states followed it and also achieved white dominance. In 1877 the last of federal troops were withdrawn from the region.

Even in this environment, black Mississippians continued to be elected into local office. However, black residents were eventually deprived of all political power after white legislators passed a new state constitution in 1890 specifically to "eliminate the nigger from politics", according to the state's Democratic governor, James K. Vardaman.[32] It had electoral and voter registration provisions that effectively disenfranchised most black Mississippians as well as many poor whites. Estimates are that 100,000 black and 50,000 white men were removed from voter registration rolls in the state over the next few years.[33] The loss of political influence contributed to the difficulties of African Americans in their attempts to obtain extended credit in the late 19th century. Together with imposition of Jim Crow laws, there was an increased rate of lynchings of blacks beginning in the 1890s as whites enforced their supremacy. Cotton crops failed due to boll weevil infestation and successive severe flooding in 1912 and 1913, created crisis conditions for many African Americans. With control of the ballot box and more access to credit, white planters bought out such farmers, expanding their ownership of Delta bottomlands. They also took advantage of new railroads sponsored by the state.[26]
Child workers, Pass Christian, 1911, by Lewis Hine
20th century to present

In 1900, blacks made up over half of the state's population. By 1910, a majority of black farmers in the Delta had lost their land and were sharecroppers. By 1920, the third generation after freedom, most African Americans in Mississippi were landless laborers again facing poverty.[26] Starting about 1913, tens of thousands of black Americans left Mississippi for the North in the Great Migration to industrial cities such as St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York. They sought jobs, better education for their children, the right to vote, relative freedom from discrimination, and better living. In the migration of 1910–1940, they left a society that had been steadily closing off opportunity. Most migrants from Mississippi took trains directly north to Chicago and often settled near former neighbors.
Dancing at a juke joint near Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1939, by Marion Post Wolcott

In the early 20th century, some industries were established in Mississippi, but jobs were generally restricted to whites, including child workers. The lack of jobs also drove some southern whites north to cities such as Chicago and Detroit seeking employment, where they also competed with European immigrants. The state depended on agriculture, but mechanization put many farm laborers out of work.

By 1900 many white ministers, especially in the towns, subscribed to the Social Gospel movement, which attempted to apply Christian ethics to social and economic needs of the day. Many strongly supported Prohibition, believing it would help alleviate and prevent many sins.[34]

African-American Baptist churches grew to include more than twice the number of members as their white Baptist counterparts. The African-American call for social equality resonated throughout the Great Depression in the 1930s and World War II in the 1940s.

The Second Great Migration from the South started in the 1940s, lasting until 1970. Almost half a million people left Mississippi in the second migration, three-quarters of them black. Nationwide during the first half of the 20th century, African Americans became rapidly urbanized and many worked in industrial jobs. The Second Great Migration included destinations in the West, especially California, where the buildup of the defense industry offered higher paying jobs to both African Americans and whites.

Blacks and whites in Mississippi generated rich, quintessentially American music traditions: gospel music, country music, jazz, blues and rock and roll. All were invented, promulgated or heavily developed by Mississippi musicians, many of them African American, and most came from the Mississippi Delta. Many musicians carried their music north to Chicago, where they made it the heart of that city's jazz and blues.

So many African Americans left in the Great Migration that after the 1930s, they became a minority in Mississippi. In 1960 they made up 42% of the state's population.[35] The white-administered, discriminatory voter registration processes had persisted, preventing most of them from voting, due to provisions of the 1890 state constitution.

The Civil Rights Movement had many roots in religion, and the strong community of churches helped supply volunteers and moral purpose for their activism. Mississippi was a center of activity, based in black churches, to educate and register black voters, and to work for integration. In 1954 the state had created the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a tax-supported agency, chaired by the Governor, that claimed to work for the state's image but effectively spied on activists and passed information to the local White Citizens' Councils to suppress black activism. White Citizens Councils had been formed in many cities and towns to resist integration of schools following the unanimous 1954 United States Supreme Court ruling (Brown v. Board of Education) that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. They used intimidation and economic blackmail against activists and suspected activists, including teachers and other professionals.

In the summer of 1964 students and community organizers from across the country came to help register black voters and establish Freedom Schools. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was established to challenge the all-white Democratic Party. Most white politicians resisted such changes. Chapters of the Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers used violence against activists, most notably the murder of three civil rights activists in 1964 during the Freedom Summer campaign. This was a catalyst for Congressional passage the following year of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Mississippi earned a reputation in the 1960s as a reactionary state.[36][37]

After decades of disenfranchisement, African Americans in the state gradually began to exercise their right to vote again for the first time since the 19th century, following the passage of federal civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, which ended de jure segregation and enforced constitutional voting rights. Registration of African-American voters increased and there were black candidates in the 1967 elections for state and local offices. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party fielded some candidates. Teacher Robert G. Clark of Holmes County was the first African American to be elected to the state House since Reconstruction. He continued as the only African American in the state legislature until 1976 and was repeatedly elected into the 21st century, including three terms as Speaker of the House.[38]

In 1966, the state was the last to repeal officially statewide prohibition of alcohol. Prior to that, Mississippi had taxed the illegal alcohol brought in by bootleggers. Governor Paul Johnson urged repeal and the sheriff "raided the annual Junior League Mardi Gras ball at the Jackson Country Club, breaking open the liquor cabinet and carting off the Champagne before a startled crowd of nobility and high-ranking state officials."[39]

On August 17, 1969, Category 5 Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars).

In 1987, 20 years after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1967's Loving v. Virginia that a similar Virginian law was unconstitutional, Mississippi repealed its ban on interracial marriage (also known as miscegenation), which had been enacted in 1890 by the Democrats. It also repealed the segregationist-era poll tax in 1989, and in 1995, the state symbolically ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which had abolished slavery in 1865. Though ratified in 1995, the state never officially notified the U.S. archivist, which kept the ratification unofficial until 2013, when Ken Sullivan contacted the office of Secretary of State of Mississippi, Delbert Hosemann, who agreed to file the paperwork and make it official.[40][41][42] In 2009, the legislature passed a bill to repeal other discriminatory civil rights laws which had been enacted in 1964 but ruled unconstitutional in 1967 by federal courts. Republican Governor Haley Barbour signed the bill into law.[43]

The end of legal segregation and Jim Crow led to the integration of some churches, but most today remain divided along racial lines. After the Civil War, most African Americans left white churches to establish their own independent congregations, particularly Baptist churches, establishing state associations and a national association by the end of the century. They wanted to express their own traditions of worship and practice.[44] In more diverse communities, such as Hattiesburg, some churches have multiracial congregations.[45]
Hurricane Katrina approaching the Gulf Coast on August 28, 2005.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, though a Category 3 storm upon final landfall, caused even greater destruction across the entire 90 miles (145 km) of the Mississippi Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama.
Demographics
Historical population
Census Pop. %±
1800 7,600 —
1810 31,306 311.9%
1820 75,448 141.0%
1830 136,621 81.1%
1840 375,651 175.0%
1850 606,526 61.5%
1860 791,305 30.5%
1870 827,922 4.6%
1880 1,131,597 36.7%
1890 1,289,600 14.0%
1900 1,551,270 20.3%
1910 1,797,114 15.8%
1920 1,790,618 −0.4%
1930 2,009,821 12.2%
1940 2,183,796 8.7%
1950 2,178,914 −0.2%
1960 2,178,141 0.0%
1970 2,216,912 1.8%
1980 2,520,638 13.7%
1990 2,573,216 2.1%
2000 2,844,658 10.5%
2010 2,967,297 4.3%
Est. 2014 2,994,079 0.9%
Source: 1910–2010[46]
2014 estimate[1]

The center of population of Mississippi is located in Leake County, in the town of Lena.[47]
Mississippi population density map

The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Mississippi was 2,994,079 on July 1, 2014, a 0.9% increase since the 2010 United States Census.[1]

From 2000 to 2010, the United States Census Bureau reported that Mississippi had the highest rate of increase in people identifying as mixed-race, up 70 percent in the decade; it amounts to a total of 1.1 percent of the population.[45] In addition, Mississippi led the nation for most of the last decade in the growth of mixed marriages among its population. The total population has not increased significantly, but is young. Some of the above change in identification as mixed race is due to new births. But, it appears mostly to reflect those residents who have chosen to identify as more than one race, who in earlier years may have identified by just one ethnicity. A binary racial system had been in place since slavery times and the days of racial segregation. In the civil rights era, people of African descent banded together in an inclusive community to achieve political power and gain restoration of their civil rights.

As the demographer William Frey noted, "In Mississippi, I think it's [identifying as mixed race] changed from within."[45] Historically in Mississippi, after Indian removal in the 1830s, the major groups were designated as black (African American, many of whom have some European ancestry), who were then mostly enslaved, and white (primarily European American). Matthew Snipp, also a demographer, commented on the increase in the 21st century in the number of people identifying as being of more than one race: "In a sense, they're rendering a more accurate portrait of their racial heritage that in the past would have been suppressed."[45]

After having comprised a majority of the state's population since well before the Civil War and through the 1930s, today African Americans comprise approximately 37 percent of the state's population. Most have ancestors who were enslaved, with many forcibly transported from the Upper South in the 19th century to work on the area's new plantations. Many such slaves were mixed race, with European ancestors, as there were many children born into slavery of mixed relationships. Some also have Native American ancestry.[48] During the first half of the 20th century, a total of nearly 400,000 African Americans left the state during the Great Migration, for opportunities in the North, Midwest and West. They became a minority in the state for the first time since early in its development.

The state had conservative laws related to sexuality. The state's sodomy law criminalized consensual sex between adults of the same gender until 2003 (but were seldom enforced), when such laws were voided by the Supreme Court. In 2004, voters in Mississippi approved Amendment 1, amending the state's constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage; the measure passed with 86% of the vote, the highest margin of victory in the nation. This law is overturned by Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the decision of the US Supreme Court making same-sex marriage a constitutional right.[49]

Despite conservative laws, same-sex couples were forming families in the state. According to the 2010 census, approximately 33% of households led by same-sex couples in Mississippi included at least one child, the highest such percentage in the nation.[50]

Ethnic makeup and ancestry

At the 2010 U.S. census, the racial makeup of the population was:

59.1% White American (58.0% non-Hispanic white, 1.1% White Hispanic)
37.0% African American or Black
0.5% American Indian and Alaska Native
0.9% Asian American
1.1% Multiracial American
1.4% Other

Ethnically, 2.7% of the total population, among all racial groups, was of Hispanic or Latino origin (they may be of any race).[51] As of 2011, 53.8% of Mississippi's population younger than age 1 were minorities, meaning that they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic white.[52] For more information on racial and ethnic classifications in the United States see race and ethnicity in the United States Census.
Mississippi Racial Breakdown of Population Racial composition 1990[53] 2000[54] 2010[55]
White 63.5% 61.4% 59.1%
Black 35.6% 36.3% 37.0%
Asian 0.5% 0.7% 0.9%
Native 0.3% 0.4% 0.5%
Other race 0.1% 0.5% 1.3%
Two or more races - 0.7% 1.2%

Americans of Scots-Irish, English and Scottish ancestry are present throughout the state. It is believed that there are more people with such ancestry than identify as such on the census, in part because their immigrant ancestors are more distant in their family histories. English, Scottish and Scots-Irish are generally the most under-reported ancestry groups in both the South Atlantic States and the East South Central States. The historian David Hackett Fischer estimated that a minimum 20% of Mississippi's population is of English ancestry, though the figure is probably much higher, and another large percentage is of Scots ancestry. Many Mississippians of such ancestry identify simply as American on questionnaires, because their families have been in North America for centuries.[56][57] In the 1980 census 656,371 Mississippians of a total of 1,946,775 identified as being of English ancestry, making them 38% of the state at the time.[58]

The state in 2010 had the highest proportion of African Americans in the nation. Recently, the African-American percentage of population has begun to increase due mainly to a younger population than the whites (the total fertility rates of the two races are approximately equal). Due to patterns of settlement and whites putting their children in private schools, in almost all of Mississippi's public school districts, a majority of students are African American. African Americans are the majority ethnic group in the northwestern Yazoo Delta, and the southwestern and the central parts of the state. These are areas where, historically, African Americans owned land as farmers in the 19th century following the Civil War, or worked on cotton plantations and farms.[59]

People of French Creole ancestry form the largest demographic group in Hancock County on the Gulf Coast. The African-American; Choctaw, mostly in Neshoba County; and Chinese-American portions of the population are also almost entirely native born.

Chinese came to Mississippi as indentured laborers from Cuba during the 1870s, with others coming from mainland China in the later 19th century. The majority entering the state immigrated directly from China to Mississippi between 1910–1930, when they were recruited by planters as laborers. While most first worked as sharecroppers, the Chinese worked as families to leave that work. Many became small merchants and especially grocers in small towns throughout the Delta.[60] In these roles, the ethnic Chinese carved out a niche in the state between black and white, where they were concentrated in the Delta. These small towns have declined since the late 20th century, and many ethnic Chinese have joined the exodus to larger cities, including Jackson. Their population in the state overall has increased in the 21st century.[61][62][63]

In the early 1980s many Vietnamese immigrated to Mississippi and other states along the Gulf of Mexico, where they became employed in fishing-related work.[64]

Teenage pregnancy

Teenage pregnancy is a problem in Mississippi. The latest data shows that Mississippi has the highest teenage birth rate in the United States. Mississippi's rate is more than 60 percent above the U.S. average.[65][66] A special Teen Pregnancy Prevention Task Force is working on a plan to reduce teen pregnancy in Mississippi.[67]

Language

In 2000, 96.4% of Mississippi residents five years old and older spoke only English in the home, a decrease from 97.2% in 1990.[68] English is largely Southern American English, with some South Midland speech in northern and eastern Mississippi. There is a common absence of final /r/ and the lengthening and weakening of the diphthongs /ai/ and /oi/ as in 'ride' and 'oil'. South Midland terms in northern Mississippi include: tow sack (burlap bag), dog irons (andirons), plum peach (clingstone peach), snake doctor (dragonfly), and stone wall (rock fence).[68]
Top 10 Non-English Languages Spoken in Mississippi Language Percentage of population
(as of 2010)[69]
Spanish 1.9%
French 0.4%
German, Vietnamese, and Choctaw (tied) 0.2%
Korean, Chinese, Tagalog, Italian (tied) 0.1%
Arabic 0.0%

Religion

Under French and Spanish rule beginning in the 17th century, European colonists were mostly Roman Catholics. The growth of the cotton culture after 1815 brought in tens of thousands of Anglo-American settlers each year, most of whom were Protestants from Southeastern states. Due to such migration, there was rapid growth in the number of Protestant churches, especially Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist.[70]

The revivals of the Great Awakening in the late 18th and early 19th centuries initially attracted the "plain folk" by reaching out to all members of society, including women and blacks. Both slaves and free blacks were welcomed into Methodist and Baptist churches. Independent black Baptist churches were established before 1800 in Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina and Georgia, and later developed in Mississippi as well.

In the post-Civil War years, religion became more influential as the South became known as the "Bible Belt".

Since the 1970s, fundamentalist conservative churches have grown rapidly, fueling Mississippi's conservative political trends among whites.[70] In 1973 the Presbyterian Church in America attracted numerous conservative congregations. As of 2010 Mississippi remained a stronghold of the denomination. The state has the highest adherence rate of the PCA in 2010, with 121 congregations and 18,500 members. It is among the few states where the PCA has higher membership than the PC(USA).[71] According to the Association of Religion Data Archives(ARDA) in 2010 the Southern Baptist Convention had 907,384 adherents and was the largest religious denomination in the state, followed by the United Methodist Church with 204,165; and the Roman Catholic Church with 112,488.[72] Other religions have a small presence in Mississippi; as of 2010, there were 5,012 Muslims, 4,389 Hindus and 816 Bahá'í.[72]

Public opinion polls have consistently ranked Mississippi as the most religious state in the United States, with 59% of Mississippians considering themselves "very religious". The same survey also found that 11% of the population were non-Religious.[73] In a 2009 Gallup poll, 63% of Mississippians said that they attended church weekly or almost weekly - the highest percentage of all states (US average was 42%, and the lowest percentage was in Vermont at 23%).[74] Another 2008 Gallup poll found that 85% of Mississippians considered religion an important part of their daily lives, the highest figure among all states (US average 65%).[75]

LGBT

The 2010 United States census counted 6,286 same-sex unmarried-partner households in Mississippi, an increase of 1,512 since the 2000 United States census.[76] 33% contained at least one child, giving Mississippi the distinction of leading the nation in the percentage of same-sex couples raising children.[77] Mississippi has the largest percentage of African-American same-sex couples among total households. The state capital, Jackson, ranks tenth in the nation in concentration of African-American same-sex couples. The state ranks fifth in the nation in the percentage of Hispanic same-sex couples among all Hispanic households and ninth in the highest concentration of same-sex couples who are seniors.[78]
Health

The state is ranked 50th or last place among all the states for health care, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation working to advance performance of the health care system.[79] For three years in a row, more than 30 percent of Mississippi's residents have been classified as obese. In a 2006 study, 22.8 percent of the state's children were classified as such. Mississippi had the highest rate of obesity of any U.S. state from 2005 to 2008 and also ranks first in the nation for high blood pressure, diabetes, and adult inactivity.[80][81] In a 2008 study of African-American women, contributing risk factors were shown to be: lack of knowledge about body mass index (BMI), dietary behavior, physical inactivity and lack of social support, defined as motivation and encouragement by friends.[82] A 2002 report on African-American adolescents noted a 1999 survey which suggests that a third of children were obese, with higher ratios for those in the Delta.[83]

The study stressed that "obesity starts in early childhood extending into the adolescent years and then possibly into adulthood". It noted impediments to needed behavioral modification included the Delta likely being "the most underserved region in the state" with African Americans the major ethnic group; lack of accessibility and availability of medical care; and an estimated 60% of residents living below the poverty level.[83] Additional risk factors were that most schools had no physical education curriculum and nutrition education is not emphasized. Previous intervention strategies may have been largely ineffective due to not being culturally sensitive or practical.[83] A 2006 survey found nearly 95 percent of Mississippi adults considered childhood obesity to be a serious problem.[84]
Economy
See also: Mississippi locations by per capita income
A Mississippi U.S. quarter

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Mississippi's total state product in 2010 was $98 billion.[85] Per capita personal income in 2006 was $26,908, the lowest per capita personal income of any state, but the state also has the nation's lowest living costs. Although the state has one of the lowest per capita income rates in the United States, Mississippians consistently rank as one of the highest per capita in charitable contributions.[86]

Mississippi's rank as one of the poorest states is related to its dependence on cotton agriculture before and after the Civil War, late development of its frontier bottomlands in the Mississippi Delta, repeated natural disasters of flooding in the late 19th and early 20th century that required massive capital investment in levees, and ditching and draining the bottomlands, and slow development of railroads to link bottomland towns and river cities.[87] In addition, when Democrats regained control of the state legislature, they passed the 1890 constitution that discouraged corporate industrial development in favor of rural agriculture, a legacy that would slow the state's progress for years.[88]

Before the Civil War, Mississippi was the fifth-wealthiest state in the nation, its wealth generated by cotton plantations along the rivers.[89] Slaves were counted as property and the rise in the cotton markets since the 1840s had increased their value. By 1860, a majority – 55 percent – of the population of Mississippi was enslaved.[90] Ninety percent of the Delta bottomlands were undeveloped and the state had low overall density of population.
Sharecropper's daughter, Lauderdale County, 1935

Largely due to the domination of the plantation economy, focused on the production of agricultural cotton, the state's elite was reluctant to invest in infrastructure such as roads and railroads. They educated their children privately. Industrialization did not reach many areas until the late 20th century. The planter aristocracy, the elite of antebellum Mississippi, kept the tax structure low for their own benefit, making only private improvements. Before the war the most successful planters, such as Confederate President Jefferson Davis, owned riverside properties along the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers in the Mississippi Delta. Away from the riverfronts, most of the Delta was undeveloped frontier.

During the Civil War, 30,000 Mississippi soldiers, mostly white, died from wounds and disease, and many more were left crippled and wounded. Changes to the labor structure and an agricultural depression throughout the South caused severe losses in wealth. In 1860 assessed valuation of property in Mississippi had been more than $500 million, of which $218 million (43 percent) was estimated as the value of slaves. By 1870, total assets had decreased in value to roughly $177 million.[91]

Poor whites and landless former slaves suffered the most from the postwar economic depression. The constitutional convention of early 1868 appointed a committee to recommend what was needed for relief of the state and its citizens. The committee found severe destitution among the laboring classes.[92] It took years for the state to rebuild levees damaged in battles. The upset of the commodity system impoverished the state after the war. By 1868 an increased cotton crop began to show possibilities for free labor in the state, but the crop of 565,000 bales produced in 1870 was still less than half of prewar figures.[93]

Blacks cleared land, selling timber and developing bottomland to achieve ownership. In 1900, two-thirds of farm owners in Mississippi were blacks, a major achievement for them and their families. Due to the poor economy, low cotton prices and difficulty of getting credit, many of these farmers could not make it through the extended financial difficulties. Two decades later, the majority of African Americans were sharecroppers. The low prices of cotton into the 1890s meant that more than a generation of African Americans lost the result of their labor when they had to sell their farms to pay off accumulated debts.[26]

After the Civil War, the state refused for years to build human capital by fully educating all its citizens. In addition, the reliance on agriculture grew increasingly costly as the state suffered loss of cotton crops due to the devastation of the boll weevil in the early 20th century, devastating floods in 1912–1913 and 1927, collapse of cotton prices after 1920, and drought in 1930.[87]

It was not until 1884, after the flood of 1882, that the state created the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta District Levee Board and started successfully achieving longer term plans for levees in the upper Delta.[14] Despite the state's building and reinforcing levees for years, the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 broke through and caused massive flooding of 27,000 square miles (70,000 km2) throughout the Delta, homelessness for hundreds of thousands, and millions of dollars in property damages. With the Depression coming so soon after the flood, the state suffered badly during those years. In the Great Migration, hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated North and West for jobs and chances to live as full citizens.
Entertainment and tourism
The Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi; the tallest building in the state.

The legislature's 1990 decision to legalize casino gambling along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast has led to increased revenues and economic gains for the state. Gambling towns in Mississippi have attracted increased tourism: they include the Gulf Coast resort towns of Bay St. Louis, Gulfport and Biloxi, and the Mississippi River towns of Tunica (the third largest gaming area in the United States), Greenville, Vicksburg and Natchez.

Before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Mississippi was the second-largest gambling state in the Union, after Nevada and ahead of New Jersey. An estimated $500,000 per day in tax revenue was lost following Hurricane Katrina's severe damage to several coastal casinos in Biloxi in August 2005.[94] Because of the destruction from this hurricane, on October 17, 2005, Governor Haley Barbour signed a bill into law that allows casinos in Hancock and Harrison counties to rebuild on land (but within 800 feet (240 m) of the water). The only exception is in Harrison County, where the new law states that casinos can be built to the southern boundary of U.S. Route 90.

In 2012, Mississippi had the sixth largest gambling revenue of any state, with $2.25 billion.[95] The federally recognized Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians has established a gaming casino on its reservation, which yields revenue to support education and economic development.

Momentum Mississippi, a statewide, public–private partnership dedicated to the development of economic and employment opportunities in Mississippi, was adopted in 2005.[96]
Manufacturing
The Nissan Titan is manufactured in Mississippi.
The Toyota Corolla is manufactured in Mississippi for the US market.

Mississippi, like the rest of its southern neighbors, is a Right-to-work state. Because of this, it has attracted some international businesses. It has some major automotive factories, such as the Toyota Mississippi Plant in Blue Springs and a Nissan Automotive plant in Canton. The latter produces the Nissan Titan.
Taxation

Mississippi collects personal income tax in three tax brackets, ranging from 3% to 5%. The retail sales tax rate in Mississippi is 7%. Tupelo levies a local sales tax of 2.5% .[97] For purposes of assessment for ad valorem taxes, taxable property is divided into five classes.[98]

On August 30, 2007, a report by the United States Census Bureau indicated that Mississippi was the poorest state in the country. Major cotton farmers in the Delta have large, mechanized plantations, and they receive the majority of extensive federal subsidies going to the state, yet many other residents still live as poor, rural, landless laborers. The state's sizable poultry industry has faced similar challenges in its transition from family-run farms to large mechanized operations.[99] Of $1.2 billion from 2002–2005 in federal subsidies to farmers in the Bolivar County area of the Delta, only 5% went to small farmers. There has been little money apportioned for rural development. Small towns are struggling. More than 100,000 people have left the region in search of work elsewhere.[100] The state had a median household income of $34,473.[101]

As of January 2010, the state's unemployment rate was 10.9%.[102]
Federal subsidies and spending

With Mississippi's fiscal conservatism, in which Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, and other social programs are often cut, eligibility requirements are tightened, and stricter employment criteria are imposed, Mississippi ranks as having the second-highest ratio of spending to tax receipts of any state. In 2005, Mississippi citizens received approximately $2.02 per dollar of taxes in the way of federal spending. This ranks the state 2nd highest nationally, and represents an increase from 1995, when Mississippi received $1.54 per dollar of taxes in federal spending and was 3rd highest nationally.[103] This figure is based on federal spending after large portions of the state were devastated by Hurricane Katrina, requiring large amounts of federal aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

A proportion of federal spending in Mississippi is directed toward large federal installations such as Camp Shelby, John C. Stennis Space Center, Meridian Naval Air Station, Columbus Air Force Base, and Keesler Air Force Base. Three of these installations are located in the area affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Law and government
Main article: Law and government of Mississippi

As with all other U.S. states and the federal government, Mississippi's government is based on the separation of legislative, executive and judicial power. Executive authority in the state rests with the Governor, currently Phil Bryant (R). The Lieutenant Governor, currently Tate Reeves (R), is elected on a separate ballot. Both the governor and lieutenant governor are elected to four-year terms of office. Unlike the federal government, but like many other U.S. States, most of the heads of major executive departments are elected by the citizens of Mississippi rather than appointed by the governor.

Mississippi is one of five states that elects its state officials in odd-numbered years (the others are Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey and Virginia). Mississippi holds elections for these offices every four years, always in the year preceding Presidential elections.
Laws

In 2004, Mississippi voters approved a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and prohibiting Mississippi from recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The amendment passed 86% to 14%, the largest margin in any state.[104][105]

Mississippi is one of 32 states which have capital punishment as a legal sentence (see Capital punishment in Mississippi).

Section 265 of the Constitution of the State of Mississippi declares that "No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state."[106] This religious test restriction was held to be unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961).
Political alignment

Mississippi led the South in developing a disfranchising constitution, passing it in 1890. By raising barriers to voter registration, the state legislature disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites, excluding them from politics until the late 1960s. It established a one-party state dominated by white conservative Democrats.

In the mid-20th century, Mississippi white voters together with other southern white voters shifted their allegiance to the Republican Party, first for national and then for state offices, but may still vote for Democrats at the local level. Mississippi was the last state to have presidential elections in which one candidate gained a popular vote exceeding 90% and 85%, in 1944 and 1964, respectively. In both years, the voting reflected essentially only white voters in the state, as most African Americans were overwhelmingly still disenfranchised under the state's 1890 constitution and discriminatory practices. In 1944, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won nearly 94% of Mississippi's popular vote. In 1964, Republican Barry M. Goldwater carried the state with 87% of votes, reflecting the shift among conservative white voters to supporting Republican candidates. Most blacks were still disenfranchised, as they were until after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and concerted grassroots efforts to achieve registration and encourage voting.
Transportation
Air

Mississippi has two international airports, one in Jackson (Jackson-Evers International Airport) and one in Gulfport (Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport)
Roads
The Vicksburg Bridge carries I-20 and US 80 across the Mississippi River at Vicksburg.

Mississippi is served by nine interstate highways:

I-10
I-110
I-20
I-220
I-22

I-55
I-59
I-69
I-269

and fourteen main U.S. Routes:

US 11
US 45
US 49
US 51
US 61
US 72
US 78
US 278

US 80
US 82
US 84
US 90
US 98
US 425

as well as a system of State Highways.

For more information, visit the Mississippi Department of Transportation website.
Rail
Passenger

Amtrak provides scheduled passenger service along two routes, the Crescent and City of New Orleans.
Freight

All but two of the United States Class I railroads serve Mississippi (the exceptions are the Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific):

Canadian National Railway's Illinois Central Railroad subsidiary provides north-south service.
BNSF Railway has a northwest-southeast line across northern Mississippi.
Kansas City Southern Railway provides east-west service in the middle of the state and north-south service along the Alabama state line.
Norfolk Southern Railway provides service in the extreme north and southeast.
CSX has a line along the Gulf Coast.

Water
Major rivers

Mississippi River
Big Black River
Pascagoula River
Pearl River
Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway
Yazoo River

Major bodies of water
The Ross Barnett Reservoir at sunset.

Arkabutla Lake – 19,550 acres (79.1 km2) of water; constructed and managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District[107]
Bay Springs Lake – 6,700 acres (27 km2) of water and 133 miles (214 km) of shoreline; constructed and managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Grenada Lake – 35,000 acres (140 km2) of water; became operational in 1954; constructed and managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District[108]
Ross Barnett Reservoir – Named for Ross Barnett, the 52nd Governor of Mississippi; 33,000 acres (130 km2) of water; became operational in 1966; constructed and managed by The Pearl River Valley Water Supply District, a state agency; Provides water supply for the City of Jackson.
Sardis Lake – 98,520 acres (398.7 km2) of water; became operational in October 1940; constructed and managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District[109]

Education
See also: List of colleges and universities in Mississippi and Education in Mississippi
School students in their library, Tupelo, Mississippi, 1936

Until the Civil War era, Mississippi had a small number of schools and no educational institutions for African Americans. The first school for black students was not established until 1862.

During Reconstruction in 1871, black and white Republicans drafted a constitution that was the first to provide for a system of free public education in the state. The state's dependence on agriculture and resistance to taxation limited the funds it had available to spend on any schools. In the early 20th century, there were still few schools in rural areas, particularly for black children. With seed money from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, many rural black communities across Mississippi raised matching funds and contributed public funds to build new schools for their children. Essentially, many black adults taxed themselves twice and made significant sacrifices to raise money for the education of children in their communities, in many cases donating land and/or labor to build such schools.[110]

Blacks and whites attended segregated and separate public schools in Mississippi until the late 1960s, although such segregation had been declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in its 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In the majority-black Mississippi Delta counties, white parents worked through White Citizens' Councils to set up private segregation academies, where they enrolled their children. Often funding declined for the public schools.[111]

But in the state as a whole, only a small minority of white children were withdrawn from public schools. State officials believed they needed to maintain public education to attract new businesses. After several years of integration, whites often dominated local systems anyway, maintaining white supremacy. Many black parents complained that they had little representation in school administration, and that many of their former administrators and teachers had been pushed out. They have had to work to have their interests and children represented.[111]

In the late 1980s, the state had 954 public elementary and secondary schools, with a total yearly enrollment of about 369,500 elementary pupils and about 132,500 secondary students. Some 45,700 students attended private schools.

In the 21st century, 91% of white children in the state attend public schools and most of the black children.[112] In 2008, Mississippi was ranked last among the fifty states in academic achievement by the American Legislative Exchange Council's Report Card on Education,[113] with the lowest average ACT scores and sixth-lowest spending per pupil in the nation. In contrast, Mississippi had the 17th-highest average SAT scores in the nation. As an explanation, the Report noted that 92% of Mississippi high school graduates took the ACT, but only 3% of graduates took the SAT, apparently a self-selection of higher achievers. This breakdown compares to the national average of high school graduates taking the ACT and SAT, of 43% and 45%, respectively.[113]

In 2007, Mississippi students scored the lowest of any state on the National Assessments of Educational Progress in both math and science.[114]

Jackson, the state's capital city, is the site of the state residential school for deaf and hard of hearing students. The Mississippi School for the Deaf was established by the state legislature in 1854 before the civil war.

The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science (MSMS) is a public residential high school for academically gifted students. It is located in Columbus, Mississippi on the campus of the Mississippi University for Women. MSMS was founded in 1987 by appropriations from the Mississippi Legislature and it is the fourth public, residential high school for academically gifted students in the United States.[3] The school enrolls students only in the last two years of high school. Rising tenth-grade students from across the state apply and are selected on a competitive basis.

The Mississippi School of the Arts (MSA) is an upper high school of literary, visual, and performing arts on the historic Whitworth College Campus in Brookhaven, Mississippi, about sixty miles (100 km) south of Jackson, Mississippi.[1] MSA teaches 11th and 12th grade students. The campus has six buildings designated as Mississippi Landmarks, and is itself an historic district listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.[1]

The Mississippi School of the Arts provides advanced, residential programs of study in visual arts, vocal music, theatre, dance, and literary arts for "artistically gifted" 11th/12th grade students from throughout Mississippi.[3][1] The comprehensive residential and academic curriculum prepares students for further studies or to pursue employment. Some non-arts courses (some math, science, etc.) are taught in conjunction with Brookhaven High School, 6 blocks away, to provide a wider curriculum.[1] Students apply for admission during their sophomore year.[1]
Culture

While Mississippi has been especially known for its music and literature, it has embraced other forms of art. Its strong religious traditions have inspired striking works by outsider artists who have been shown nationally.

Jackson established the USA International Ballet Competition, which is held every four years. This ballet competition attracts the most talented young dancers from around the world.[115]

The Magnolia Independent Film Festival, still held annually in Starkville, is the first and oldest in the state.

George Ohr, known as the "Mad Potter of Biloxi" and the father of abstract expressionism in pottery, lived and worked in Biloxi, MS.

The New Southern View Ezine, first published in the summer of 2001, is the state's first online magazine.
Music

Musicians of the state's Delta region were historically significant to the development of the blues. Their laments arose out of the region's hard times after Reconstruction. Although by the end of the 19th century, two-thirds of the farm owners were black, continued low prices for cotton and national financial pressures resulted in most of them losing their land. More problems built up with the boll weevil infestation, when thousands of agricultural jobs were lost. Many Mississippi musicians migrated to Chicago and created new forms of jazz and other genres there.

Jimmie Rodgers, a native of Meridian and guitarist/singer/songwriter known as the "Father of Country Music", played a significant role in the development of the blues. He and Chester Arthur Burnett were friends and admirers of each other's music. Their friendship and respect is an important example of Mississippi's musical legacy. While the state has had a reputation for being the most racist in the United States, individual musicians created an integrated music community. Mississippi musicians created new forms by combining and creating variations on musical traditions from Africa with the musical traditions of white Southerners, a tradition largely rooted in Scots–Irish music.

The state is creating a Mississippi Blues Trail, with dedicated markers explaining historic sites significant to the history of blues music, such as Clarksdale's Riverside Hotel, where Bessie Smith died after her auto accident on Highway 61. The Riverside Hotel is just one of many historical blues sites in Clarksdale. The Delta Blues Museum there is visited by tourists from all over the world. Close by is "Ground Zero", a contemporary blues club and restaurant co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman.

Elvis Presley, who created a sensation in the 1950s as a crossover artist and contributed to rock 'n' roll, was a native of Tupelo. From opera star Leontyne Price to the alternative rock band 3 Doors Down, to gulf and western singer Jimmy Buffett, modern rock/jazz/world music guitarist-producer Clifton Hyde, to rappers David Banner, Big K.R.I.T. and Afroman, Mississippi musicians have been significant in all genres.
Sports
Mississippi Braves outfielder Cody Johnson at Trustmark Park.
See also: List of college athletic programs in Mississippi

Biloxi, Mississippi, is home to the Mississippi Surge ice hockey team, a member of the Southern Professional Hockey League, and the Biloxi Shuckers baseball team, a AA minor league affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers and member of the Southern League.
Clinton, Mississippi, is home to the Mississippi Brilla soccer team. The Brilla are a member of the USL Premier Development League.
Pearl, Mississippi, is home to the Mississippi Braves baseball team. The Braves are an AA minor league affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. They play in the Southern League.
Southaven, Mississippi, is home to the Mississippi RiverKings hockey team, formerly known as the Memphis RiverKings. The RiverKings are a member of Southern Professional Hockey League.

Notable people
Main article: List of people from Mississippi
Oprah Winfrey, pictured in 2011, was born in Kosciusko.

Actors: Lacey Chabert, Morgan Freeman, Jim Henson, James Earl Jones, Gerald McRaney, Parker Posey, Jamie Lynn Spears, Sela Ward, and Oprah Winfrey
Artists: Walter Inglis Anderson and George E. Ohr
Athletes: Leon Bramlett, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Cool Papa Bell, Brett Favre, Al Jefferson, Monta Ellis, Archie Manning, Deuce McAllister, Steve McNair, Travis Outlaw, Walter Payton, and Jerry Rice
Authors: William Faulkner, John Grisham, Charlaine Harris, Thomas Harris, Kathryn Stockett, Jesmyn Ward, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Shelby Foote, and Richard Wright
Civil rights leaders: James Bevel, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry, and Anne Moody
Classical musicians: John Alexander, Ruby Elzy, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, Leontyne Price, and William Grant Still
Musicians: Pepper Keenan, Jimi Jamison, 3 Doors Down, David Banner, Hayley Williams, Big Krit, Lance Bass, Brandy, Jimmy Buffett, Bo Diddley, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Faith Hill, Randy Houser, Mississippi John Hurt, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Albert King, B.B. King, Denise LaSalle, Elvis Presley, Charlie Patton, Charley Pride, LeAnn Rimes, Jimmie Rodgers, David Ruffin, Britney Spears, Conway Twitty, Muddy Waters, Tammy Wynette, Jumpin' Gene Simmons and Blind Melon.

In popular culture

Children in the United States and Canada often count "One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi" during informal games such as hide and seek to approximate counting by seconds.
Mississippi's low state rankings has given rise to the saying "Thank God for Mississippi," denoting relief that the speaker's state isn't the lowest.
On March 12, 1894, the Biedenharn Candy Company bottled the first Coca-Cola in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Root beer was invented in Biloxi in 1898 by Edward Adolf Barq, the namesake of Barq's Root Beer.
The Teddy bear gets its name from President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. On a 1902 hunting trip to Sharkey County, Mississippi, he ordered the mercy killing of a wounded bear.[116]
In 1935, the world's first night rodeo held outdoors under electric lights was produced by Earl Bascom and Weldon Bascom in Columbia, Marion County, Mississippi
In 1936, Dr. Leslie Rush, of Rush Hospital in Meridian, Mississippi, performed the first bone pinning in the United States. The "Rush Pin" is still in use.
Burnita Shelton Matthews from near Hazlehurst, Mississippi, was the first woman appointed as a judge of a U.S. district court. She was appointed by Harry S. Truman on October 21, 1949.
Marilyn Monroe won the Mrs. Mississippi finals in the 1952 film We're Not Married!.
Texas Rose Bascom, of Columbia, Mississippi, became the most famous female trick roper in the world, performing on stage and in Hollywood movies. She toured the world with Bob Hope, billed as the "Queen of the Trick Ropers," and was the first Mississippian to be inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.
In 1963, Dr. James D. Hardy of the University of Mississippi Medical Center performed the first human lung transplant in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1964, Dr. Hardy performed the first heart transplant, transplanting the heart of a chimpanzee into a human, where it beat for 90 minutes.
"At 10:00 a.m. on October 22, 1964, the United States government detonated an underground nuclear device in Lamar County, in south Mississippi. (...) The Project Salmon blast was about one-third as powerful as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. (...) The Project Sterling blast, on December 3, 1966, was considerably weaker than the blast two years earlier, as it was intended to be."[117]
On January 8, 1935, Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo.[118]
Several warships have been named USS Mississippi.
The comic book character Rogue, from the well-known series X-Men, is a Mississippian and self-declared southern belle. Her home town is located in the fictional county of Caldecott.
In 2013, researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center discovered a functional cure for HIV/AIDS in infants.[119]
Many of legal thriller writer John Grisham's novels are set in and around the fictional town of Clanton, in the equally fictional Ford County, northwest Mississippi.
In "Star Trek," Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Chief Medical Officer on the U.S.S. Enterprise, studied medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Johnny Carson attended Millsaps College under an elite Navy program to train officers, known as the V-12 Program from November 1943 to February 1945.[120]