School Desegregation in Mississippi

Desegregation

In 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional in the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the gap between white and black education created by fifty years of support for white (only) education was exceedingly wide. While the Brown decision meant that the dual school system in Mississippi was now illegal, white Mississippians made clear that no attempts to abandon the dual school system would be tolerated. When groups of black Mississippians in Natchez, Vicksburg, Yazoo City, Clarksdale, and Jackson pressed for adherence to the decision in 1955, they were stopped swiftly, decisively, and repeatedly. And for a decade after Brown, white Mississippians resorted to private and state-sanctioned economic and, sometimes, physical intimidation to block black attempts to desegregate Mississippi schools. While squashing any efforts by black Mississippians to assert their new legal rights, the state of Mississippi also proposed, as an alternative to desegregated schools, a massive equalization program to improve black schools.
Lawsuits by black parents in Biloxi, Jackson, and Leake County, who were supported in their efforts by the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, finally led to the first court-ordered school desegregation in the state in the fall of 1964. In the following year, because of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, most Mississippi school districts reluctantly adopted freedom-of-choice desegregation plans, which essentially provided that any student could choose to go to any school in a district. Freedom-of-choice desegregation, however, only offered five years of token desegregation and the preservation of largely segregated schools. The problem was that in the 1960s, most black Mississippians really did not have freedom of choice. Between 1964 and 1969, black parents who chose white schools for their children were subjected to numerous forms of intimidation: some were pressured or fired by their employers; some lost their housing; some lost their credit at the local bank; and others received threatening phone calls, had crosses burned on their lawns, or were victims of physical intimidation. In 1968, largely because of the continuing resistance of white Southerners to school desegregation, the Supreme Court ruled in Green v. County School Board that freedom of choice was ineffective and no longer an acceptable method of desegregation. In October 1969, the Supreme Court essentially said enough is enough, and in a landmark decision involving thirty Mississippi school districts, Alexander v. Holmes, the court ordered the immediate termination of dual school systems and the establishment of unitary ones. Thus, many Mississippi school districts had to begin the complete integration of their school systems in mid-year, during January and February of 1970.

White Citizen's Council

On July 11, 1954, the White Citizens Council, with Robert Patterson of Indianola as leader, was formed. Primarily made up of plantation owners, bankers, doctors, lawyers, legislators, preachers, teachers, and merchants, this organization sought to prevent the implementation of the Brown decision. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan, this organization "publicly" renounced the use of violence. Nevertheless, its actions often encouraged white violence against blacks. While there were occasions when members of the group employed violence, the Council's real success lay in its ability to levy economic reprisals on those who supported and actively pushed for desegregation. Indeed, the WCC was so successful that it was more than ten years after the Brown decision before any significant desegregation occurred in Mississippi.

Mississippi Blues Music

The blues and Mississippi are synonymous to music lovers. The repertoire of any blues or rock band is full of songs, guitar licks, and vocal inflections borrowed from Mississippi bluesmen – from Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, and Son House to Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Joe Williams, Bukka White, and Furry Lewis – just to mention some of the early ones. A couple of generations later, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, James Cotton, and many others were still making Mississippi blues and sending it out all over the world.
Birth of the blues
As far as historians can tell, the blues were born in the Mississippi Delta, an elaboration on work chants, “sorrow” slave songs, and the lyrical and haunting “field hollers.” As early as the American Civil War, white soldiers noted a different music created by black soldiers – songs about marching and other toils of war in which they “extemporized a half-dissonant middle part.” These songs were direct precursors to the blues, if not the real thing already.
By the 1890s, the blues form had been set and the sounds of a distinctive new music began to be heard beyond the work camps. The new music was filled with the polyrhythms and tonalities of African music and bore the nuances of many different tribes. Black Americans had borrowed substantially from white man’s music too – its scale, its rich folk traditions, its instruments. The blues did not emerge from Africa; it was born out of two musical cultures – black and white – that were thriving and growing separately and together. The result of this large-scale mixing was music that was to be the basis of mainstream popular music for the entire 20th century.
Juke joints
With the growth of the blues came the spread of a phenomenon known as the “juke joint.” In these makeshift buildings that served as social clubs, the blues developed and spread. Songs and lyrics were borrowed, adapted from musicians who traveled from joint to joint, and techniques and styles were copied and elaborated upon. Young bluesmen found mentors and left home to follow them in a life on the road.
The first Mississippian to emerge from the anonymous folk tradition was Charlie Patton. Born near Edwards about 1887, he moved to Dockery Plantation in the Mississippi Delta to work. He began playing around the Delta at juke joints, dances, fish fries, and house parties. During those years, 1897 to 1934, he traveled with another blues great, Son House, tutored the young Howlin’ Wolf, and inspired countless others.
Eddie “Son” House was born in Coahoma County in 1902. Often regarded as the quintessential blues singer, he did not begin performing until his mid-twenties, because he was first a preacher. Preaching was a powerful influence on his forceful singing style. In 1930 he recorded two songs for the Paramount label: “Preachin’ the Blues” and “Dry Spell Blues,” about a farming crisis in the Delta. Son House is famous for his bottleneck slide technique. This technique is characteristic of blues music – the musician uses the guitar as a second voice by sliding a bottleneck or other hard object along the strings to make a wailing sound. After he was rediscovered in the 1960s, House played for a decade to college audiences and at blues festivals.
Robert L. Johnson
The most potent legend in the blues was Robert L. Johnson. He was born near Hazlehurst and ran away from home as a teenager to learn guitar from Son House. Legend has it that Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his talent to play and sing the blues better than anyone else. He worked the Delta, then traveled the upper South and East. His recording sessions in 1936 and 1937 produced some of the richest music in the history of the blues: “Crossroads,” “Love in Vain,” “Hellhound on my Trail,” and “Dust My Broom,” among others. His guitar and vocal skills established a foundation on which generations of blues and rock musicians have been building ever since.
Tommy Johnson, like Robert Johnson (no relation), claimed he too had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his amazing guitar skills. The story is an old one, with roots in voodoo and African lore, but one that is effective only when the storyteller’s skills are as extraordinary as those of Tommy Johnson or Robert Johnson. Tommy Johnson, known for his song “Canned Heat,” a name taken by the 1960s blues band, was an early guitar stuntman. His contemporary, Houston Stackhouse, reported, “He’d kick the guitar, flip it, turn it back of his head and be playin’ it. Then he’d get straddled over it like he was ridin’ a mule – pick it that way.”
When African-American musicians emigrated northward to cities like Chicago, they heard the music of tin pan alley and jazz. They began to amplify their instruments electrically and to add drums and even horns. The single bluesman was transformed into the blues band, and a new era had begun.

Education

Education
The first schools in the Mississippi region were set up by English settlers in the 18th century. The first free public school in the state, Franklin Academy, was founded at Columbus in 1821. Efforts to create a state school system were not made until the 1840s. Public schools for black students were first established in 1862. A uniform statewide public school system was finally established in 1870. In 1910 legislation was enacted by the state to consolidate rural school districts and to provide for free school transportation. School attendance was made compulsory in 1918.
Following the 1954 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that declared racial segregation in the public schools unconstitutional, white Mississippians sought to maintain their racially segregated schools. In an effort to assist them, the state abolished compulsory school attendance in 1956. However, in 1962 the federal government compelled the University of Mississippi to admit a black student, James Meredith. In 1964 it forced 19 elementary schools to admit a total of 57 black students. In the early 1970s, desegregation under federal court orders became widespread.
In 1986 the state completed the adoption of a new education program. The most important changes were the introduction of a public kindergarten system and the restoration of compulsory school attendance. Education is now compulsory for children ages 6 to 17. Private schools enroll 10 percent of the state’s children.
In the 2001–2002 school year Mississippi spent $5,719 on each student’s education, compared to a national average of $8,259. There were 15.6 students for every teacher (the national average was 15.9 students). Of those older than 25 years of age in 2004, 83 percent had a high school diploma.

Higher Education
The first college established in Mississippi was Jefferson College, which opened near Natchez in 1811. Mississippi College, in Clinton, was founded in 1826 as Hampstead Academy and is the oldest institution of higher education still in operation in Mississippi. The oldest state-controlled institution of higher learning is the University of Mississippi (founded in 1844), in Oxford. Other state-supported institutions are Alcorn State University, in Lorman; Mississippi State University, near Starkville; Mississippi University for Women, in Columbus; Jackson State University, in Jackson; the University of Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg; Delta State University, in Cleveland; and Mississippi Valley State University, in Itta Bena. In 2003–2004 the state had 26 public and 14 private institutions of higher learning, including Millsaps College, in Jackson; William Carey College, in Hattiesburg; and Tougaloo College, in Tougaloo.

Mississippi & Freedom Summer

Fannie Lou Hamer singing at a MFD rally.

(James Meredith) American civil rights advocate whose registration (1963) at the traditionally segregated University of Mississippi prompted a riot, which was spurred by state officials who defied federal pleas for peaceful integration.




http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/missippi.html



In the summer of 1964, about a thousand young Americans, black and white, came together in Mississippi for a peaceful assault on racism.
"They had to be prepared to go to jail, they had to be prepared to be beaten, and they had to be prepared to be killed," says Freedom Summer veteran Hollis Watkins.
It came to be known as Freedom Summer, one of the most remarkable chapters in the Southern Civil Rights movement.

Mississippi Government

State Elected Officials

Governor : Haley Barbour

Lieutenant Governor : Amy Tuck

Secretary of State : Eric Clark

Attorney General : Jim Hood

State Auditor : Phil Bryant

State Treasurer : Tate Reeves

Commissioner of Agriculture : Lester Spell

Commissioner of Insurance : Georg Dale

Federal Representatives

US Representative Roger Wicker, 1st District

US Representative Bennie G. Thompson, 2nd District

US Representative Charles W. Pickering, 3rd District

US Representative Gene Taylor, 4th District

US Senator Thad Cochran

US Senator Trent Lott

Mississippi's Flag

The Mississippi State Legislature adopted the present-day state flag in February 1894, replacing the Magnolia flag. This flag has a replica of the Confederate battle flag in the canton corner, although the language of the act creating the flag does not say so.

Amidst tumult over the flag, the late Aaron Henry, a member of the Mississippi Legislature and president of the Mississippi Conference of the NAACP, introduced a bill to remove the battle flag from the state flag at the beginning of the 1988 legislative session. This bill was never brought to the floor for a vote, nor were any of the others he introduced in 1990, 1992, and 1993.20
Following the failure of these bills, the Mississippi NAACP filed a lawsuit April 19, 1993, in the Hinds County Chancery Court seeking “an injunction against any future purchases, displays, maintenance or expenditures of state funds on the State Flag” on the grounds that its display violated the “constitutional rights [of African-Americans] to free speech and expression, due process and equal protection as guaranteed by the Mississippi Constitution.”21 (figure 17)
After the Chancery Court dismissed the suit June 14, 1993, the NAACP appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court. While adjudicating this case, the Court recognized the inadvertent 1906 repeal of the law establishing an official state flag.
Notwithstanding the fact that the state had no official state flag, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the suit. The Court further declared that the display of the flag, however offensive it might be to some citizens, “does not deprive any citizen of any constitutionally protected right.”
The Court further stated that a dispute over the adoption and display of a state flag is a political issue that must be resolved by the legislative and executive branches of state government and not the judiciary.22
Following this ruling handed down May 4, 2000, Governor Ronnie Musgrove, Lieutenant Governor Amy Tuck, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Tim Ford appointed a seventeen-member commission to consider the issue of an official state flag and a coat of arms.
Proposals for the new flag can be viewed at:
http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/flag/

Mississippi Facts

Capitol : Jackson

Flower & Tree : Magonolia

Bird : Mockingbird

Motto : Virtute et armis (By valor and arms)

Nickname : Magnolia State

Economy

Agriculture : Cotton, poultry, cattle, catfish, soybeans, dairy products, rice

Industry : Apparel, furniture, lumber and wood products, food processing, electrical machinery, transportation equipment

Timeline of Mississippi's History

Mississippi's chronological timeline starting 12,000 years ago

12,000 years ago - A river is born. As glaciers from last Ice Age recede, flood waters carve channel of Mississippi.
10,000 to 9,000 years ago - First evidence of human habitation in Upper Mississippi region.
8,000 years ago - Hunters slaughter giant bison in what is now Itasca State Park, leaving evidence of their presence.
2,000 years ago - Hopewell (Mound building) culture dominates area. Burial mounds left at many sites along river, including what is now Mounds Park in St. Paul.
16th century
1540-1541 - Hernando De Soto, Spanish explorer, becomes the first known European to enter Mississippi. He winters with the Chickasaws and discovers the Mississippi River in the spring.
17th century
1673 - Father Jacques Marquette, a French missionary, and fur trapper Louis Joliet begin exploration of the Mississippi River on May 17. They reach Mississippi in July and explore as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas River, near the present location of Rosedale, before turning back.
1680 - Father Louis Hennepin sees the Falls of St. Anthony, future site of Minneapolis. The Mississippi Valley in Minnesota is center of Dakota culture.
1682 - Robert Cavalier de La Salle navigates the Mississippi River to its mouth and claims for France all lands drained by the river.
1699 - Pierre LeMoyne, Sieur D'Iberville, and his brother Jean Baptiste, Sieur D'Bienville, landed in what is now Ocean Springs. They built Fort Maurepas and established the first capital of the vast French colony on the North American continent.
18th century
1700s -
French fur trading era begins.
Ojibwe begin moving into area from Great Lakes, gradually pushing Dakota south and west
1716 - Fort Rosalie, the beginning of the town of Natchez, is established.
1729 - French settlers at Fort Rosalie are massacred by Natchez Indians in an effort to drive Europeans from Mississippi.
1732 - The French retaliate for the massacre at Fort Rosalie. The Natchez Indians cease to exist as a tribe.
1736 - Bienville battles Chickasaw Indians in present day Lee County. He is defeated at the battle of Ackia.
1763-1779 -English Dominion
1763 Mississippi, along with all other French territory east of the Mississippi river, passes into English control at the end of the French and Indian War.
1779-1798 - Spanish Dominion
1779 - Bernardo Galvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana, captures Natchez.
1781-1783 Under provisions of the Treaty of Paris, West Florida, which included the southern half of Mississippi, comes under Spanish control. America gains possession of Mississippi north of the 32 degree 28 minute parallel.
1797 - Spain yields to America all land in Mississippi north of the 31st parallel, giving America control of Natchez.
1798-1817 - Mississippi Territory,
1798 -
The Spanish withdrawal from Mississippi is completed.
Mississippi is organized as an American territory, and the first territorial governor, Winthrop Sargent, is appointed by President Thomas Jefferson.
1801 - Mississippi advances to the second stage of territorial government.
1801-1802 -
A treaty with the Indians allows the Natchez Trace to be developed as a mail route and major road.
Mississippi moves its territorial capital from Natchez to Washington, a small town near the Natchez Trace.
1803 -The Louisiana Purchase opens the Mississippi River for Commerce.
1805 - By the Treaty of Mount Dexter, the Choctaws sell 4.5 million acres of land to the U.S. government. The area includes the Piney Woods region of the state.
1805 - Lt. Zebulon Pike explores Upper Mississippi, setting up posts in what will be Minnesota.
1810 - West Florida rebellion gives the United States control of Spanish West Florida.
1812 -
The War of 1812 begins.
Mississippi gains West Florida territory east of the Pearl River and south to the Gulf of Mexico.
1814-1815 The War of 1812 ends.
1816 - The Treaty of Fort Stephens with the Choctaws opens for settlement the area around the Tombigbee Prairie.
1817 - State of Mississippi
An Act of Congress on December 10 admitted Mississippi to the Union as the twentieth state.
Indian lands in Mississippi were opened to white settlement after six major treaties with the Choctaws and the Chickasaws between 1805 and 1834.
On January 9, 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union. More than 80,000 Mississippians served in the Confederate States Army.
After the fall of the Confederacy and a period of reconstruction, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union in 1870.
The Mississippi territory is divided. The western half becomes the twentieth state, Mississippi.
1818 - Elizabeth Female Academy is founded in Washington, the first girls' school chartered by the state and one of America's first women's colleges.
1819 - Fort Snelling established at confluence of Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, future site of Twin Cities.
1820 - The Treaty of Doak's Stand, the second Choctaw cession.
1821 - Mississippi's first public school is opened in Columbus.
1822 - The state capital is moved to Jackson. Built on the site of Lefleur's Bluff, Jackson was one of the first planned cities in the nation. It was named for Major General Andrew Jackson.
1826 - Mississippi College, then Hampstead Academy, is established.
1830 -
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek cedes all Choctaw territory east of the Mississippi River to the U.S. Government. Most of the Choctaws leave the state.
The Treaty of Pontotoc Creek cedes north Mississippi Indian territory to the U.S. Government. The Chickasaws leave the state for Oklahoma.
The Mississippi Constitutional Convention produces the Constitution of 1832.
1832 - Henry Schoolcraft is led to the headwaters of the Mississippi by an Ojibwe elder, Ozawindib.
1837 - First major commercial logging of white pine forests begins.
1838 - Pig's Eye settlement, forerunner of St. Paul, established upstream of Fort Snelling.
1842 - Governor Tilghman M. Tucker becomes the state's first chief executive to occupy the newly completed Governor's Mansion, still used today.
1844 - The University of Mississippi is established.
1848 - State government assumes operation of a private school for the blind. It becomes the Mississippi School for the Blind, the nation's first state-supported institution for the handicapped.
1850 -
The U.S. Congress gives the state title to more than 3 million acres of swamp and overflow land. By this time, 310 miles of levees have been built along the banks of the Mississippi River. The Delta is drained, cleared, and becomes available for cultivation.
The Compromise of 1850 contains slavery to the South.
1854 -
Mississippi Institute for the Deaf and Dumb opens in Jackson.
Henry Hughes of Port Gibson publishes Treatise on Sociology, which later earns him the title "first American sociologist."
1861 -
Mississippi secedes from the Union on January 9.
In July, Ship Island is captured by Union forces. The fall of Ship Island gives Union forces control of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
1862 -
In late April, the Battle of Shiloh gives Union forces control of the Tennessee River and opens the way to attack Corinth, a railroad center vital to the South.
Corinth falls in May.
1863 - The Emancipation Proclamation abolishes slavery.
1865 - Robert E. Lee surrenders on April 9. The Civil War ends.
1867 - A military government is established in Mississippi after the reconstructed government of Mississippi is rejected by the U.S. Congress.
1868 - Mississippi's first biracial constitutional convention - the "Black and Tan" Convention" - drafts a constitution protecting the rights of freedmen (ex-slaves) and punishing ex-Confederates. It is rejected by the voters.
1869 - Under the leadership of James L. Alcorn, Mississippi ratifies a constitution which does not punish ex-Confederate soldiers.
1870 -
Mississippi is readmitted to the Union on February 23.
Civil government is gradually restored under Governor Alcorn.
The state's first system of public education is established.
Senator Hiram R. Revels, a minister from Natchez, becomes the first black senator in U.S. history, and serves as Mississippi's U.S. Senator from January 1870 to March 1871.
Using power of river at St. Anthony Falls, milling expands into major Minneapolis industry.
1871 - Alcorn University, now Alcorn State University, is organized.
1877 -
The Mississippi State Board of Health is created through the influence of the State Medical Association.
Jackson College, a private college for blacks, is established at Natchez.
1878 - Agricultural and Technical School is established. In 1935, it becomes Mississippi State College and in 1958, Mississippi State University.
1884 - The Industrial Institute and College, today's Mississippi University for Women, is established.
1890 -
A new state constitution is adopted.
1892 Millsaps College is opened.
20th century
1903 - A new capitol building, constructed at a cost of $1 million, is dedicated in Jackson.
1907 -
The boll weevil arrives in Mississippi, destroying most of the state's cotton crop.
William H. Smith organizes the first of the state's "Com Clubs," which leads to the formation of the 4-H Clubs of America.
1908 - Mississippi adopts statewide prohibition.
1909 - Dr. Laurence C. Jones founds the Piney Woods Country Life School for the vocational and secondary education of black students.
1910 - Mississippi Normal College, now the University of Southern Mississippi, is organized.
1916 -
The Mississippi State Sanatorium for Tuberculosis is established.
Governor Theodore Bilbo establishes the state's first Highway Commission.
1922 - The State Legislature authorizes a system of junior colleges, the first in the nation.
1923 - Two women, Senator Belle Kearny and Representative Nellie Nugent Somerville, are elected to the State Legislature.
1924 - Delta State Teachers' College, now Delta State University, is established.
1927 - The Mississippi River floods 2,722,000 acres in the Delta. Thousands are left homeless.
1929 - The Depression begins.
1930 - Lock and dam system -- to facilitate navigation and control flooding -- authorized by Congress.
1932 -
The state's first sales tax becomes effective.
The Natchez Pilgrimage, a nationally-famous tour of that area's antebellum homes, becomes an annual event.
1936 - The State Legislature passes an amendment to balance agriculture with industry (BAWI Program). The Industrial Commission and the Advertising Commission are created to implement the program, which includes adoption of the nation's first industrial revenue bond.
1939 - The state's first oil well is brought in near Tinsley, in Yazoo County.
1940 -
Jackson College, having earlier moved from Natchez to Jackson, becomes a state institution.
Lock and dam system completed
1941-1945 World War II promotes an industrial boom in the state.
1946 - Mississippi Vocational College, now Mississippi Valley State University, is established.
1954 - Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court's landmark ruling, lays groundwork for desegregation.
1962 - James Meredith, the first black registrant, enters the University of Mississippi -- the beginning of the end to segregation in public universities and colleges.
1963 - Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary, is assassinated.
1964 -
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, outlawing segregation in public places.
Three civil-rights workers are murdered near Philadelphia, Miss
1965 - Governor Paul B. Johnson, Jr., announces that the BAWI Program has achieved its goal.
1968 -
Circuit Court judge 0. H. Barnett rules that Choctaw Indians are subject to their tribal laws, a reversal of an 1830's ruling that abolished tribal government.
Robert Clark begins serving his first term in the Mississippi House as its first modern-day black member.
1969 -
Unitary system of public education is mandated by federal courts, ending segregation in public schools.
Hurricane Camille wreaks havoc upon Mississippi's Gulf Coast and areas inland.
1970 - Mississippi Authority for Educational Television is established and begins broadcasting.
1972 -
Work begins on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.
Governor William Waller's administration aggressively involves blacks and women in government through key Cabinet, Board and judicial appointments.
1976 -
Governor Cliff Finch calls a special session of the Legislature to restructure the states savings and loan associations, averting a financial crisis.
Governor Finch succeeds in reuniting the long- separated Loyalist and Regular factions of the Mississippi Democratic Party.
1978 -
After 36 years of service, U.S. Senator James 0. Eastland retires.
Sixteenth Section Lands and Lieu Lands Act transfers control of Sixteenth Section Lands from county boards of supervisors to local boards of education and requires fair-market rental value on those lands.
1979 -
Mattie T. Consent Decree initiates procedures providing equal education for handicapped children in the states public schools.
Devastating flood inundates the city of Jackson and many towns south along the Pearl River.
1982 -
Governor William F. Winter calls a special legislative session, resulting in adoption of the historic Education Reform Act, pioneering nationwide school reform.
Jackson hosts the International Ballet Competition.
1983 - Judge Lenore Prather becomes Mississippi's first woman Supreme Court justice.
1984 -
Public Radio in Mississippi goes on the air.
Governor Bill Allain implements a massive program of governmental reorganization.
1985 - Justice Reuben Anderson becomes Mississippi's first black Supreme Court Justice.
1986 -
The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway is completed.
Yazoo City lawyer Mike Espy is elected to the U.S. House, the first black congressman from Mississippi since Reconstruction.
1987 -
Senator John C. Stennis, dean of U.S. Senators serving 40 years, announces he will not seek reelection.
Ray Mabus is elected governor, the nation's youngest at 39.
1988 - A voluntary county unit system law is signed by Governor Mabus.
1989 -
Fifth District congressman Larkin Smith dies in a plane crash near Hattiesburg. State Senator Gene Taylor of Bay St. Louis wins a spirited special election to succeed him.
1990 - Mississippi National Guard men and women play important roles in Operation Desert Storm for America in the Middle East.
1991 -
Mississippi becomes the nation's 21st state to allow its citizens to register to vote by mail.
Kirk Fordice becomes Mississippi's first Republican governor since Reconstruction.
1992 - Tornadoes hit Brandon and other parts of Mississippi killing fifteen and injuring about 300 others
1994 - One of the nation's strongest lobbying reform laws is passed by the Mississippi Legislature.
21th century
2000 - David Ronald Musgrove becomes Mississippi's sixty-second Governor.
2003 - Haley Barbour becomes Mississippi's sixty-third Govenor
http://www.shgresources.com/ms/timeline/