AGENCY 027 - WEBCAM CHAT MISSISSIPPI
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Mississippi (IPA: /?m?s?'s?pi/) is a state located in the Deep South of the United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The state's name comes from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, and takes its name from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River"). The state is heavily forested, and produces a majority of American catfish.[2] Mississippi is also known for its state symbol, the Magnolia. Contents [hide]
Major rivers in Mississippi, apart from its namesake, include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo, the Pascagoula, and the Tombigbee. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake and Grenada Lake. 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 is made up of a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, also known as the Mississippi Delta. The Mississippi Alluvial 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 floodwaters of the Mississippi River. Areas under the management of the National Park Service include: Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site near Baldwyn [edit] Climate In the late summer and the fall, the state (especially the southern part) is often affected by hurricanes moving north from the Gulf of Mexico, and occasionally impacted by major hurricanes, which can be quite devastating in coastal communities. Thunderstorms are common in Mississippi, especially in the southern part of the state. On average, Mississippi has around 27 tornadoes annually with the northern part of the state more vulnerable earlier in the year and the southern part more vulnerable later in the year. Monthly Normal High and Low Temperatures For Various Mississippi
Cities
Due to seasonal flooding possible from December to June, the Mississippi River created a fertile floodplain in what is called the Mississippi Delta, including tributaries. Early planters used slaves to build levees along the Mississippi River to divert flooding. They built on top of the natural levees that formed from dirt pushed up in flooding. As cultivation of cotton increased in the Delta, planters hired Irish laborers to ditch and drain their land. The state took over levee building from 1858-1861, accomplishing it through contractors. 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.[3] Before the war, the earthwork levees averaged six feet in height, although in some areas they reached twenty feet. The levee system was expanded after the flood of 1882. By 1884 the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Levee District was established to oversee levee construction and maintenance in the northern Delta counties.[5] Flooding overwhelmed northwestern Mississippi in 1912-1913, causing heavy financial costs to the levee districts. Regional losses and the Mississippi River Levee Association's lobbying for a flood control bill helped gain passage of bills in 1917 and 1923 to provide Federal matching funds for local levee districts, on a scale of 2:1. Although US 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 in the 1920s.[6] Nonetheless, the region was severely flooded and suffered millions of dollars in damages due to the Great Flood of 1927. Property, stock and crops were all lost. In Mississippi, most damage was in the lower Delta, including Washington and Bolivar counties.[7]
The first major European expedition into the territory that became Mississippi was that of Hernando de Soto, who passed through in 1540. The first settlement was Fort Maurepas (also known as Old Biloxi) at Ocean Springs, settled by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in April 1699. In 1716, Natchez was founded on the Mississippi River (as Fort Rosalie); it became the dominant town and trading post of the area. After spending some time under Spanish, British, and French nominal jurisdiction, the Mississippi area was deeded to the British after the French and Indian War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763). The Mississippi Territory was organized on April 7, 1798, from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina. It was later twice expanded to include disputed territory claimed by both the U.S. and Spain. Land was purchased (generally through unequal treaties) from Native American tribes from 1800 to about 1830. Mississippi was the 20th state admitted to the Union, on December 10, 1817. When cotton was king during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners—especially those of the Delta and Black Belt regions—became increasingly wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil, the high price of cotton on the international market, and their assets in slaves. The planters' dependence on hundreds of thousands of slaves for labor, and the severe wealth imbalances among whites played heavy roles in both state politics and in the support for secession. By 1860 the enslaved population numbered 436,631 or 55% of the state's total of 791,305. There were fewer than 1000 free people of color.[9] The relatively low population of the state before the Civil War reflected the fact that much of the state was still wilderness and needed more settlers for development. Mississippi was the second state to secede from the Union as one of the Confederate States of America on January 9, 1861. During the Civil War the Confederate States were defeated. During Reconstruction the first constitutional convention in 1868 framed a constitution whose major elements would last for 22 years. The convention was the first political organization to include colored representatives, 17 among the 100 members. Although 32 counties had Negro majorities, they elected whites as well as Negroes to represent them. The convention adopted universal suffrage; did away with property qualifications for suffrage or for office, which benefited poor whites, too; provided for the state's first public school system; forbade race distinctions in the possession and inheritance of property; and prohibited limiting of civil rights in travel.[10] Under the terms of Reconstruction, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on February 23, 1870. While Mississippi typified the Deep South in passing Jim Crow laws in the early 20th century, its history was more complex than just discrimination. Because the Mississippi Delta contained so much fertile bottomland which had not been farmed, after the Civil War African Americans achieved unusually high rates of land ownership in bottomland areas away from the riverfronts. Also, tens of thousands of immigrants were attracted to the Delta. In the 1870s and 1880s, many black farmers succeeded in gaining ownership of land. By the turn of the century, two-thirds of the farmers (in numbers) in Mississippi who owned land in the Delta were African American and seemed headed for having a stake in the future. Their clearing and development of the land made it valuable. Many were able to keep going through the difficult years of falling cotton prices by extending their debts. 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 and lost the land they had put so much labor into.[11] Disfranchisement of African Americans at the turn of the century, a series of increasingly restrictive racial segregation laws enacted during the first part of the 20th century, increased lynchings, failure of the cotton crops due to boll weevil infestation, and successive severe flooding in 1912 and 1913 resulted in thousands of African Americans leaving Mississippi to migrate north starting during World War I. With the Great Migration, they left a society that had been steadily closing off opportunity. With control of the ballot box and more access to credit, white planters expanded their ownership of Delta backcountry and could take advantage of new railroads. By 1910 a majority of black farmers in the Delta were sharecroppers, and by 1920, the third generation after freedom, African Americans were mostly landless laborers facing inescapable poverty. Most migrants from Mississippi took the trains north to Chicago. Another wave of migration started in the 1940's. Almost half a million people left Mississippi in the second migration, three-quarters of them black. 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, and most came from the Mississippi Delta. Many musicians carried their music north to Chicago, where it became part of that city's jazz and blues. The state's complex history has generated great storytellers. Mississippi is noted for award-winning twentieth-century authors native to or associated with the state, including Nobel Prize-winner William Faulkner, playwright Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, Ellen Douglas, Walker Percy, Willie Morris, historian Shelby Foote, Margaret Walker, Ellen Gilchrist, Alice Walker, and playwright Beth Henley. Mississippi was a center of activity during the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Students and community organizers from across the country came to help register voters and establish Freedom Schools. Resistance and harsh attitudes of many white politicians (including the creation of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission), the participation of Mississippians in the White Citizens' Councils, and the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers, [2] gained Mississippi a reputation in the 1960s as a reactionary state.[3] In 1966 the state was the last to repeal prohibition of alcohol. In 1995 it symbolically adopted the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. These amendments were still in effect in Mississippi even before their ratification there. 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). 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 Mississippi Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama. On August 30, 2007, a report by the United States Census Bureau indicated that Mississippi is the poorest state in the country. Many white cotton farmers have large, mechanized plantations, some of which receive extensive Federal subsidies, yet many African Americans still live as poor, rural, landless laborers. The state had a median household income of $34,473.[12]
The 2000 Census reported Mississippi's population as 2,844,658 [4]. The center of population of Mississippi is located in Leake County, in the town of Lena [5]. [edit] Racial makeup and ancestry Demographics of Mississippi (csv) Until the 1930s, African Americans made up a majority of Mississippians. Due to the Great Migration, the state's African American population declined. It is the highest proportion of state population in the nation (not counting the District of Columbia). Recently it has begun to increase again, due mainly to a higher birth rate than the state average. In many of Mississippi's public school districts, a majority of students are black. [6] Blacks are a majority in the northwestern Yazoo Delta, the southwestern, and the central parts of the state, chiefly areas where they owned land as farmers or worked on cotton plantations and farms. More than 98% of the white population of Mississippi is native born, predominantly of British and Celtic descent. According to the 2000 census, the largest ancestries are: American (14.2%) Although some ethnic Chinese were recruited as indentured laborers from Cuba during the 1870s and later 19th c., the majority immigrated directly from China to Mississippi between 1910-1930. While planters first made arrangements with the Chinese for sharecropping, most Chinese soon left that work. Many became small merchants and especially grocers in towns throughout the Delta.[13] According to recent statistics, Mississippi leads the country in the growth of immigrants.
The United States 2000 Census counted 4,774 same-sex couple households in Mississippi.[15][16] Mississippi was one of three states - the others being South Dakota and Utah - that had 40 percent or more of these same-sex couple households having at least one own child living in the household.[17] Of Mississippi’s same-sex couples, 41% have one or more children. This figure is higher in Mississippi than in any other state. Further, Mississippi has a larger percentage of African American same-sex couples among total households than does any other state. Additionally, Mississippi ranks number 5 in the nation in the percentage of Hispanic same-sex couples among all Hispanic households. Mississippi ranks number 9 nationally among states with the highest concentration of same-sex couples who are seniors.[18] Jackson, the state capital, ranks number 10 in the nation in concentration of African-American same-sex couples.[19] In 2004, Mississippi voters overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage by 86%, the largest proportion of any state. The amendment also prohibits Mississippi from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states and countries, where it may be legal.[20][21]
Before the Civil War, Mississippi was the fifth-wealthiest state in the nation.[23] Slaves were then counted as property and the rise in the cotton markets since the 1840s had increased their value. A majority - 55 percent - of the population of Mississippi was enslaved in 1860.[24] Largely due to the domination of the plantation economy, focused on the production of one agricultural good, cotton, the state was slow to use its wealth to invest in infrastructure such as public schools, roads and railroads. Industrialization also did not spread from northern climates until the late 20th century. The planter aristocracy, the elite of antebellum Mississippi, kept the tax structure low for themselves and made private improvements. The most successful planters, such as Confederate President Jefferson Davis, owned riverside properties along the Mississippi River. During the Civil War, 30,000 Mississippi men were killed, 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. [25] Poor whites and landless freed blacks suffered the most from the depression that followed the Civil War. 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.[26] 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.[27] By 1900, two-thirds of farm owners in Mississippi were blacks, but 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 off their farms to pay off accumulated debts.[28] 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 requiring massive capital investment in levees, heavy capital investment to ditch and drain the bottomlands, and slow development of railroads to link bottomland towns and river cities.[29] The 1890 constitution discouraged industry, a legacy that would slow the state's progress for years.[30] From Democratic militias and groups such as the White Camellia terrorizing African American Republicans to take political control in the 1870s, to the legislature passing segregation and disfranchisement legislation, 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 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.[31] 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.[32] 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 and millions of dollars in property damages. With the Depression coming so soon after the flood, the state suffered badly during those years. Tens of thousands of people migrated north for jobs and chances to live as full citizens. The legislature's 1990 decision to legalize casino gambling along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast has led to economic gains for the state. An estimated $500,000 per day in tax revenue was lost following Hurricane Katrina's severe damage to several coastal casinos in August 2005.[citation needed] Gambling towns in Mississippi include the Gulf Coast 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. On October 17, 2005, Governor Haley Barbour signed a bill into law that now 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.[citations needed] Mississippi collects personal income tax in three tax brackets, ranging from 3% to 5%. The retail sales tax rate in Mississippi is 7%. Additional local sales taxes also are collected. For purposes of assessment for ad valorem taxes, taxable property is divided into five classes.[citations needed] [edit] Transportation [edit] Road Interstate 10 and fourteen main U.S. Routes: U.S. Route 11 as well as a system of State Highways. Two further interstate highways are proposed: Interstate 69 and Interstate 269. For more information, visit the Mississippi Department of Transportation website.
Amtrak provides scheduled passenger service along two routes. Canadian National Railway's Illinois Central Railroad subsidiary provides north-south service. The BNSF Railway has an east-west line across northern Mississippi. Kansas City Southern Railway provides east-west service in the middle of thee state and north-south service along the Alabama state line. Norfolk Southern Railway provides service in the extreme north and southeast, while CSX has a line along the Gulf Coast.
[edit] Major rivers [edit] Major lakes [edit] Air Golden Triangle Regional Airport, serving Columbus/Starkville/West
Point Northwestern Mississippi is also served by Memphis International Airport.
Mississippi is one of only 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 in the years preceding Presidential election years. Thus, the last year when Mississippi elected a Governor was 2007, and the next gubernatorial election will occur in 2011. (See: List of Governors of Mississippi) Legislative authority resides in the state legislature, composed of the Senate and House of Representatives. The lieutenant governor presides over the Senate, while the House of Representatives selects their own Speaker. The state constitution permits the legislature to establish by law the number of senators and representatives, up to a maximum of 52 senators and 122 representatives. Current state law sets the number of senators at 52 and representatives at 122. The term of office for senators and representatives is four years. (See: List of U.S. state legislatures.)
As of the 2001 apportionment, the state has four congressmen in the U.S. House of Representatives, currently Chip Pickering (Republican), Bennie Thompson (Democrat), Gene Taylor (Democrat), and an open seat that was held by Roger Wicker before his appointment to the Senate (see Mississippi's 1st congressional district special election, 2008). (See: List of United States Representatives from Mississippi; Congressional districts map)
[edit] Federal politics For 116 years (from 1876 to 1992), Mississippians only elected Democratic governors. Over the same period, the Democratic Party dominated state and federal elections in Mississippi. However, since the 1960s the Republican Party has become competitive in statewide elections. In recent years, it has become dominant in the state's federal elections, carrying the state's electoral votes in every election since 1980. Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic nominee to win in Mississippi, when he narrowly carried the state in 1976 by only two percentage points. Mississippi has elected Republican nominees 9 out of 11 times in presidential elections since 1964.[37] Mississippi will host its first ever presidential debate when the party nominees face off on the University of Mississippi campus September 26, 2008.[38] Mississippi's presidential caucus takes place March 11, 2008.
(See: List of counties in Mississippi) On some social issues, Mississippi is one of the more conservative states in the US, with religion often playing a large role in citizens' political views. Liquor laws are particularly strict and variable from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Liquor sales are frequently banned on Sunday. Many cities and counties allow no alcoholic beverage sales ("dry"), while others allow beer but not liquor, or liquor but not beer. Some allow beer sales, but only if it is not refrigerated.[39] In 2001, Mississippi banned adoption by same-sex couples and banned recognition of adoptions by same-sex couples which were done and recognized in other states or countries. In 2004, 86% of voter turnout amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage and ban state recognition of same-sex marriages which were done and recognized in other states and countries. At the same time, Mississippi has been one of the more innovative states in the country, having been the first state to implement a sales tax and the first state to pass a Married Women's Property Act. Also, Mississippi has more African American elected officials than any other state in the United States. Mississippi is one of only a few states to have decriminalized the possession of marijuana to a degree in that possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana is punishable by a fine of $100 - $250 for the first offense with no jail time.[7]
Mississippi City Population Rankings (United States Census Bureau estimates as of 2005) 1. Jackson, Mississippi (177,977)
During Reconstruction in 1870, black and white Republicans were the first to establish a system of 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. As late as the early 20th century, there were few schools in rural areas. With seed money from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, many rural communities across Mississippi raised matching funds and contributed public funds to build new schools for African-American children, under the management of white school boards. Essentially, many African Americans taxed themselves twice and made significant sacrifices to raise money for the education of their children.[40] Blacks and whites attended separate public schools in Mississippi until the 1960s, when they began to be integrated following a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Population settlement patterns have resulted in many districts that are de facto segregated. 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 2004, Mississippi was ranked last among the fifty states in academic achievement by the American Legislative Exchange Council's Report Card on Education, with the lowest average ACT scores and spending per pupil in the nation. In 2007, Mississippi students scored the lowest of any state on the National Assessments of Educational Progress in both math and science.[41]
(see: List of colleges and universities in Mississippi)
Jimmie Rodgers, a white guitarist/singer/songwriter, known as the "Godfather of Country," also played a significant role in the development of the blues. He and Chester Arthur Burnett were friends and admirers of each other's music. Rodgers was supposed to have given Burnett his nickname of Howlin' Wolf. This 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 America, it also played a significant role in the integration of American music. Its musicians created a creolization by combining musical traditions from Africa with the musical traditions of white Southerners, a tradition largely rooted in Celtic music. The Mississippi Blues Trail, now being implemented, has dedicated markers for historic sites, 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. Located in Clarksdale, the Delta Blues Museum is visited by people from all over the world. Close by are Ground Zero and Madidi, a blues club and restaurants co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman. Mississippi has been fundamental to the development of American music has a whole. Elvis Presley was a native of Tupelo, Mississippi. While its origins were based more in Tennessee than Mississippi, country music had its first superstar in Jimmie Rodgers, a native of Meridian. From the famous alternative rock band 3 Doors Down to famous gulf and western singer Jimmy Buffett, Mississippi has had a long and proud music history. (see: List of people from Mississippi)
[edit] Famous Mississippians (see: List of people from Mississippi)
The Teddy bear gets its name from a 1902 hunting trip to Sharkey County, Mississippi by President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt in which he refused to shoot a captured bear. In 1936 Dr. Leslie Rush, of Rush Hospital in Meridian, Mississippi performed the first bone pinning in the United States. This led to the development of the "Rush Pin", which is still in use to this day. The first woman to be a judge of a U.S. district court was Burnita Shelton Matthews of the Burnell community near Hazlehurst, Mississippi. She was appointed by Harry S. Truman on October 21, 1949. The first human lung transplant was performed in 1963 by Dr. James D. Hardy of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1964, Dr. Hardy performed the first heart transplant, transplanting the heart of a chimpanzee into a human, with some success. The heart continued to beat for 90 minutes. Former astronaut and administrator of NASA Richard H. Truly is from Fayette, Mississippi. Educated in Mississippi and Georgia, Truly was in charge of reforming NASA (1989 to 1992) in the era immediately following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. He was the first former astronaut to head NASA. The world-renowned USA International Ballet Competition takes place in Jackson every four years. Root beer was invented in Biloxi in 1898 by Edward Adolf Barq, the namesake of Barq's Root Beer. The first bottling of Coca-Cola occurred in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the Biedenharn Candy Company in 1891. The pledge to the State of Mississippi flag: "I salute the flag of Mississippi and the sovereign state for which it stands with pride in her history and achievements and with confidence in her future under the guidance of Almighty God." Several warships have been named USS Mississippi in honor of this state. Starkville is home to the state's first and oldest independent film festival, The Magnolia Independent Film Festival, which takes place each February.
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