Mississippi is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. On December 10, 1817, Mississippi became the 20th state admitted to the Union.
By 1860, Mississippi was the nation’s top cotton-producing state and slaves accounted for 55% of the state population. Mississippi declared its secession from the Union on March 23, 1861, and was one of the seven original Confederate States, which constituted the largest slaveholding states in the nation. Following the American Civil War, it was restored to the Union on February 23, 1870.
Until the Great Migration of the 1930s, African Americans were a majority of Mississippi’s population. Mississippi was the site of many prominent events during the civil rights movement, including the Ole Miss riot of 1962 by white students objecting to desegregation, the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers, and the 1964 Freedom Summer murders of three activists working on voting rights.