Heritage
Civil Rights
Mississippi, particularly Jackson, has been on the forefront of the fight for civil rights that continued after emancipation.
The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case resulted in the so-called “separate but equat” system These Jim Crow laws continued to govern the behavior of Black people.for almost seventy-five years.
Galvanizing the fight for civil rights was the 1955 murder of Emmett Till and the 1963 murder of Megar Evers, the NACCP’s Mississippi field secretary. In 1962, the University of Mississippi enrolled its first Black student. In a voter registration drive in the summer of 1964, a group of young white and Black people became the so-called Freedom Riders, They traveled in segregated areas such as buses, trains, restaurants and rest rooms. Violence erupted, Many of the Freedom Riders want to jail and their refrain of “Jail, no bail” underlined the conviction to not subsidize the system that jailed them.
The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, the only one in the nation funded by a state, not the federal government, lays out the history of Black people comprehensively.
College Football
College football is the only football that matters in the South. All Saturdays, all days. Perhaps you’ve heard of Ole Miss and Mississippi State. University of Southern Missississippi, Alcorn State, Jackson State, and Mississippi Valley State also play D1. Delta State,Bellhaven University and Milsapps College also play NCAA ball. Hottie Toddy in Oxford and cowbells in Starkville. Also the Grove. You will understand later.
Civil War
In 1861, Mississippi was the second state which seceded from the Union. he defense of slavery was its primary reason for leaving, calling it “the greatest material interest of the world”. At that time, the enslaved population exceed the white population.
Mississippi’s territory, particularly the Mississippi River, was a major strategic battleground in the Civil War, Over 80,000 white and 17,000 formerly-enslaved Mississippians fought for the Confederacy.
The Union’s victory at Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two and resulted in the devastation of both the physical and encomic underpinnings of the state.
Food
Tamales. Catfish. Pimento cheese. Fried chicken. BBQ. Cheese straws. Mississippi mud pie. Sweet tea. Enough said. Oh, home of the fried pickle. Alcorn State’s unofficial mascot is the Flying Okra.
