Constituent state of the United States of America. Originally part of America's Old Southwest, Mississippi became the 20th state of the Union in 1817. Its name has long been identified with many of the characteristics attributed, correctly or incorrectly, to the Deep South, but since the 1960s the state has been engaged in efforts to alter the economic and social patterns of the past. Jackson is the state capital. The name is derived from an Indian word meaning “great waters” or “father of waters.”
Mississippi ranks 32nd among the U.S. states in area. Throughout most of it—from Tennessee on the north to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, from Alabama on the east to Louisiana and Arkansas on the west—much of Mississippi's soil is rich and deep, and its low-lying landscape is laced with many rivers. Almost inevitably it became an agricultural state. The long dominance of a rural, unhurried way of life has contributed much to the problems of present-day Mississippi, just as it earlier helped to enhance the state. This way of life has also left a sense of history among some Mississippians, whose ancestors created a culture of gentility that is still evident in the many historic mansions located in such old towns as Columbus, Biloxi, Natchez, and Holly Springs.
For decades an unusually large dependent population, a predominantly agricultural economy, and a prevailing resistance to change have kept Mississippi's per capita income low and created an inadequate standard of living for many families. At least half of all Mississippians live in rural areas—but not necessarily on farms—and the state continues to rank low in many economic indexes, including per capita income, which is well below the national average. In 1965 industrial income surpassed agricultural income for the first time in the state's history. Area 47,695 square miles (123,530 square km). Pop. (1990) 2,573,216; (2000) 2,844,658.
Physical and human geography
The land
The Deep South. [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]
Mississippi is a low-lying state, its highest point reaching only 806 feet (246 metres) above sea level. Except for its hilly northeast corner, Mississippi lies entirely within the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain physiographic region. It has generally low topographic elevations and extensive tracts of marshy land. Its major soil areas encompass hills, plains, prairies, river lowlands, and pine woods.
Relief
In the northwest the great fertile crescent called the Delta is the old floodplain of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, comprising 4,000,000 acres (1,600,000 hectares) of black alluvial soil many feet deep. Once subject to disastrous floods, the land is now protected by levee and reservoir systems. Though the Delta was only sparsely settled in antebellum days, it has become a region of highly mechanized farming.
East of the Delta looms a high wall of loess bluffs, marking the beginning of the highlands, or hills. A brown loam belt of varying width extends from Tennessee to Louisiana. Most of southern Mississippi lies in the high and rolling Piney Woods. Though settled early, the area did not prosper until the early 20th century, when the great virgin pine forests were exploited and heavily reduced. It has since become a prosperous area based on diverse forest industries, cattle, and some specialty farming.
The coastal area, sometimes called the Coastal Meadows, or Terrace, borders the Gulf of Mexico. The soil is sandy and not well suited to crops, but its location, climate, and industrialization have made the region important.
Along the northern edge of the Piney Woods lies the narrow Central Prairie, separated from the Black Prairie by a section of hills and woods. The two prairies, with fertile black soil that is excellent for many types of agriculture, were once the site of cotton plantations. East of the Black Prairie, in the extreme northeast, are the Tennessee Hills. Arching between Tennessee and Alabama, these hills form the only area in Mississippi in which the terrain and people are reminiscent of the southeastern mountains.
West of the Black Prairie another highland area, the Pontotoc Ridge, ranges south from the Tennessee border. This ridge, averaging 400 to 600 feet (120 to 180 metres) above sea level, is one of the state's most distinctive features. Its fertile, sandy loam is excellent for orchards. A low-lying region called Flatwoods skirts the western edges of the Pontotoc Ridge and the Black Prairie. Its heavy clay soils drain poorly, and the area has never developed a prosperous economy. The North Central Hills range through northern and central Mississippi and eastward to Alabama. Their red clay soil supports small farms. Before scientific farming methods were widely adopted, erosion ruined thousands of acres in these hills.
Drainage
Mississippi has many rivers, creeks, bayous, and other drainage. The state's principal river systems include the Tombigbee, now joined with the Tennessee to form the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway, in the northeastern section; the Pascagoula in the southeast; the Pearl in the south central section; and the Mississippi and its tributaries, notably the Yazoo and the Big Black, in the west. These streams all empty into the Gulf, either directly or through the Mississippi and other rivers.
Climate
Mississippi's location endows it with a favourable climatic range. The growing season is long (virtually year-round on the coast), rainfall is abundant, and extreme temperatures are unusual. Summers are warm, with temperatures sometimes exceeding 95 °F (35 °C). Autumn's bright, crisp days have the least rain and are usually the most agreeable of the year. January temperatures average from 42 °F (6 °C) to 50 °F (10 °C). Snowfall is rare but does occur. Supplies of water are abundant, and rainfall is usually adequate for replacement. The state's annual average is more than 50 inches (1,270 mm), varying by region. The coastal area is subject to hurricanes from June to October.
Plant and animal life
The mild climate, long growing season, and abundant rainfall provide Mississippi with a remarkable variety of plant and animal life. Live oaks and palms vary the landscape of the southern counties, and fruit trees and hardwoods thrive in the north. The magnolia and pecan trees are favourites throughout the state. Pine forest, often intermixed with oaks, is found extensively on the state's sandier soils. More than half the land area is in forests, and both natural and cultivated floral displays are diverse and abundant.
Opening land to farming and hunting reduced the once abundant wildlife to near extinction. The wolf and puma (cougar) are gone; the bobcat is rare and the bear even rarer. Yet deer are once more abundant, and wild turkeys have increased. The state has a variety of resident and migratory birds. Some game fish can be taken throughout the year, with catfish, bream, bass, and perch the leading freshwater species. The Gulf is rich in shrimp, oysters, and fish, the mainstays of extensive commercial fishery.
Settlement patterns
Almost every Mississippian knows and uses such regional designations as the Delta and the Hills, South Mississippi and the Coast, the Prairie or the Black Belt, and North Mississippi and the Northeast. The landscape of Mississippi is mainly one of forests, fields, and towns. Cities and factories take a lesser place. Soils unsuited to row crops may support tree farms, pastures, or orchards. The largest metropolitan areas are Jackson, Biloxi–Gulfport, and Pascagoula.
Geographers may speak of the Yazoo basin, but to the people of Mississippi it is the Delta. The white Deltans pay homage to aristocratic plantation traditions and tend to be politically conservative. The Hill people, however, do not defer to the Deltans, many of whose families originally came from the Hills.
What historians call the Piney Woods, covering most of the state south of Jackson, the people call South Mississippi. Its population and prosperity have grown in the 20th century, and change seems to come easier there than in most other regions. Farmers are rapidly being replaced by workers in commerce and industry.
The coastal area is atypical of the state as a whole. More Roman Catholic and Mediterranean than upstate, it blends French, Spanish, Latin-American, Dalmatian, and British heritages in the most heterogeneous of Mississippi's regions.
The Prairie region has some of the ways and style of both the Delta and the Hills. Its lands, however, are more productive than the Hills, and some traditions from the antebellum era remain. Northeast Mississippi developed as an area of small family farms and few plantations, and it has the lowest nonwhite population in the state.
The people
The white population of Mississippi is remarkably homogeneous. More than 98 percent native-born of native stock, whites are predominantly of British, Irish, and northern European ancestry. The black, Choctaw Indian, and Chinese segments of the population are also almost entirely native-born.
Until about 1940 blacks were in the majority, but by the late 20th century, largely because of a very high rate of out-migration, blacks made up only a third of the population. A few thousand Indians (mostly Choctaw) live in the east central section of the state. The small Chinese population found in the Delta is descended from farm labourers brought there from California in the 1870s. The Chinese did not adjust well to the Mississippi plantation system, however, and most of them became small merchants. The coastal fishing industry has attracted Southeast Asian refugees.
Various Protestant denominations dominate Mississippi's religious life, most notably Baptists and United Methodists. The Roman Catholic population is mainly concentrated in the urban centres and the southernmost areas, especially the coastal counties. The Jewish community is almost entirely urban.
Mississippi has no great extremes of population concentration or extensive uninhabited areas. Since 1950 there has been a slow but steady loss of farm population and a decline of smaller towns, but most of the centres of more than 10,000 inhabitants have had significant growth.
Mississippians, who inherited the frontier tradition of “moving on,” have become as mobile as other Americans. Frequent movement by sharecroppers and tenant farmers from one farmstead to another was commonplace before 1920, at about which time the economic focus (and the locus of emigration) shifted to the cities and towns. About three-fourths of the white emigrants moved to other Southern states, whereas the same proportion of black emigrants left the South entirely. The net loss by emigration has largely offset Mississippi's high rate of natural increase. Significant population growth in Mississippi would require that the state retain more of its young people.
The economy
In many economic indexes Mississippi ranks low in its region and in the nation. There has been some improvement in employment, wages, and personal income; but the proportionate national and regional growth has been even greater, and the relative economic disadvantage continues. Nearly 95 percent of personal income is derived from eight sources—manufacturing, the federal government, property, farms, state and local governments, wholesale and retail trade, operation of nonfarm commercial enterprises, and personal and business services.
State agencies administer regulatory functions in the area of utilities, transportation, oil, gas, insurance, and pollution. The Department of Economic Development seeks new businesses and aids in expanding existing ones by such means as loans for training and recruiting workers. It is aided by the Mississippi Research and Development Center through research in economic development. The several economic-development districts promote activities in their constituent counties. The private sector also advertises the state's advantages.
Labour union membership is relatively small, although widely dispersed. Most large employers have a union membership, though Mississippi has a right-to-work law that prohibits compulsory union membership.
Resources
Petroleum and natural gas account for more than nine-tenths of the value of all minerals produced. Important nonmetallic minerals include sand and gravel, fuller's earth, and other clays. Iron has been mined intermittently since 1887. Aluminum ores are low in quality, and they have been little exploited.
About half of the land area is in commercial forests that produce lumber, paper pulp, naval stores, and other forest products. Seafoods from Gulf waters are processed in coastal plants.
Electrical power produced within the state is from steam-generating plants and a nuclear power station near Port Gibson. Hydroelectric power is brought into Mississippi from Tennessee Valley Authority dams and through interconnections with power companies in other states. A few private companies, numerous rural cooperatives, and several municipal generating systems are in operation. Several large transmission facilities bring natural gas into and through the state.
Agriculture
Since World War II Mississippi's economy has become less dependent on agriculture, and both the number of farms and farm acreage have declined. Cotton is no longer king in Mississippi. The state's principal agricultural income derives from livestock, catfish farms, and poultry and from various crops, with soybeans and cotton being the most prevalent. Approximately 70 percent of the state's farms produce livestock and dairy products, while only about 10 percent of the farms produce cotton.
Industry
In 1936 Mississippi began a program to promote the expansion of manufacturing, and in 1965 the state's industrial employment exceeded the number of agricultural workers for the first time. The state's major manufactured goods include forest and chemical products. The Ingalls Shipyard, at Pascagoula, is the state's largest employer.
Transportation
The declining fortunes of rail transportation and the existence of obsolete segments of the state's highway system have created problems in transportation. The heaviest volume of traffic is along the Gulf Coast, where it merges into the flow from the numerous upstate north–south and east–west patterns. The 200-mile Natchez Trace Parkway, which extends from Natchez to Nashville, Tenn., and is part of the National Park Service, is protected from commercialization and truck traffic. Peaceful and sylvan, it preserves the natural surroundings of the old Indian trace, or trail, and encompasses many sites of historic interest.
Commercial transportation, in addition to highway trucking, is diversified. Of the railways in the state, half are entirely intrastate. Most large cities have commercial airports with scheduled air service. Interstate bus lines serve almost all major cities and towns. Gulfport and Pascagoula can accommodate oceangoing ships, and low-draft oceangoing vessels can travel up the Mississippi to Natchez, Vicksburg, and Greenville. Barge traffic moves on the Mississippi, Pearl, and Yazoo rivers. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway passes just off the coast across the Mississippi Sound.
Administration and social conditions
Government
The state government has executive, legislative, and judicial branches, but it differs from those of some states in that most heads of executive departments are elected rather than appointed. The bicameral legislature, which meets in annual sessions, comprises a 122-member House of Representatives and a 52-member Senate. Members of both houses are elected to four-year terms.
The executive branch of state government includes the governor, lieutenant governor, and eleven other officials, all of whom are elected to four-year terms. Executive officials can succeed themselves.
The lowest court in the state's judicial system is the justice court, which has original jurisdiction in misdemeanors for which fines, sentences, and judgments do not exceed prescribed limits. Some large counties also maintain a county court. Chancery courts have jurisdiction over matters of equity, probate, juvenile delinquency (where county courts do not exist), divorce, and mental competence. Circuit courts are the main trial courts for major suits, criminal cases, and appeals from justice and county courts. The Supreme Court is the court of appeal; its nine justices are elected, from three judicial districts, for staggered terms of eight years. All other judges are elected to four-year terms.
Each of Mississippi's 82 counties is governed by a board of supervisors. Municipalities may be incorporated as villages, towns, or cities. Governments of these units are of the mayor–council type with aldermen, the commission type with three commissioners (including the mayor), or the city-manager type, in which the manager is appointed by the council. State and county officials are elected in a November general election. Party primaries are held in August.
From the end of Reconstruction until the late 1940s, the Democratic Party was essentially the only party in Mississippi. As in many Southern states, literacy tests, poll taxes, and other restrictive measures kept blacks at a proportionally low level of political involvement. Disaffection among Mississippi's white voters with the national Democratic Party broke its domination in 1948, and thereafter, with few exceptions, states' rights or conservative Republican presidential candidates received the state's electoral ballots. Increasing participation by blacks, made possible by the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act a year later, further redefined party politics in Mississippi. For a time, two Democratic parties existed—a predominantly black loyalist faction allied with the more liberal national party, and a conservative wing favouring the traditional state power structure. The party eventually unified, with the Republican opposition gaining support among conservative Mississippians. Since the 1960s blacks have won election to an increasing number of local and state offices throughout Mississippi.
Finances
Sales taxes are the state's major source of revenue, followed by personal and corporate income taxes and gasoline taxes. Local governments derive their greatest income from property taxes. Considerable amounts of federal monies are provided through numerous federal and state agencies.
Education
Mississippi's public school system has been ranked at the bottom of almost all measurable standards for many years. Following years of turmoil brought on by the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling against racial segregation in public schools, the state committed itself to a dramatic improvement of its schools. The Education Reform Act of 1982, the reinstatement of compulsory attendance for children between the ages of six and 14, competency testing of high school students, the creation of an appointed state school board, and the establishment of an early childhood education program are measures that the state has taken to enhance the quality of education. The success of these measures is evident in the diminishing school dropout rate and the steady improvement in educational test scores.
Mississippi has a distinguished history of higher education, however. Although it closed in 1826 and again in 1863, Jefferson College, founded in 1802, was among the earliest public institutions of higher learning in the nation. Elizabeth Female Academy, which is sometimes considered to be the first women's college, was established at Washington in 1818. In 1878 Mississippi established Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University), the first land-grant college for blacks in the United States, and in 1884 it established the Industrial Institute and College (now the Mississippi University for Women), the first state-supported institution granting diplomas to women. The University of Mississippi, in University, near Oxford, was chartered in 1844 and opened in 1848. In addition to the more than 40 junior colleges, colleges, and universities, other educational facilities include a medical centre, the Gulf Coast Marine Research Laboratory, and the Mississippi Sea Grant Consortium.
Health and welfare
Education, health, welfare, and other measurements of the quality of life in Mississippi necessarily must be considered in the perspective of the state's long history of segregation and racial discrimination. The high infant mortality and illiteracy rates, low educational achievement scores, and welfare dependency are linked to a century of poverty, injustice, discrimination, and a resistance to modernization that has impeded the development of the state's natural and human resources. Almost all counties have some form of relief or welfare programs that involve federal funds. Welfare services include aid to the blind and disabled, the elderly, and dependent children. Health programs are administered by several state agencies, including the Board of Health, which dates from 1877.
Historically, the state has been in the vanguard of public health services. The causes of pellagra were discovered in 1915 through experiments at the state penal farm. A model mosquito-control program eradicated yellow fever, and the state tuberculosis sanitarium became recognized nationally. Pioneer work has continued in Mississippi in the education of blind and deaf children.
Cultural life
Before the Civil War the “Planter Society” and those who identified with it had a highly developed sense of gentility. The lifestyle to which they aspired made patronage of the arts obligatory. They built Greek Revival mansions and furnished them with art objects and fine furniture, their children were tutored in the social graces and the arts, and hospitality became an art in itself. The rural gentry, however, was only a very small part of the total society. The small landowner and slave alike fashioned simple, sturdy furniture, made their own oxbows and spinning wheels, and patiently crafted musical instruments. When they rested, they heard folk songs, ballads, or African lullabies. Their literature was myth, legend, and tall tale, and their dances were traditional or improvised.
From these sources came the present-day cultural and artistic heritage of Mississippians. In the 20th century, technology, mobility, and mass communication have created an adherence to a national culture. A freshening sense of history is evident, however, in the efforts to preserve historic landmarks and in the intensity of the collectors of the artifacts and furnishings of the past—of folk songs, implements and utensils, furniture, and manuscripts.
Mississippi has been a vital part of the flowering of Southern literature during the 20th century. The mythical county of Yoknapatawpha and the generations of its people were created by William Faulkner in a celebrated series of novels. The works of this Nobel Prize-winning Mississippian are often ranked among the highest attainments in American literature. Other natives of international literary renown include novelists Eudora Welty and Richard Wright, novelist-critic Stark Young, and playwright Tennessee Williams. Mississippi's “second generation” of writers includes Elizabeth Spencer, Walker Percy, Willie Morris, and Ellen Douglas; more recently, Barry Hannah, Richard Ford, and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley have attained national prominence.
Mississippi has produced several famous newspaper editors, including Turner Catledge, of the New York Times, and the Pulitzer Prize winner Hodding Carter, of the Greenville Delta Democrat-Times. All of the state's large towns are served by local dailies, and the smaller towns and communities are served by one of the strongest systems of weeklies in the United States.
In music, both white and black folk traditions are found, in English and Scottish ballads and in blues, spirituals, and sacred harp singing. This rich heritage has given rise to such acclaimed performers as Elvis Presley, blues artist B.B. King, and lyric soprano Leontyne Price. The state has several symphony orchestras, an opera guild in Jackson, and extensive musical activities at several colleges. The theatrical tradition dates from 1800, when a Natchez audience saw the first dramatic production to be presented west of the Alleghenies. Today some 20 community theatres and 30 colleges and universities offer dramatic fare, in addition to a semiprofessional company in Jackson.
Mississippi's rural heritage continues to be a strong influence on the lifestyles and recreational habits of the people. Hunting, fishing, boating, camping, and other outdoor activities are among the most popular forms of leisure in the state. Mississippi maintains a system of state parks, and the U.S. Department of the Interior maintains the Vicksburg National Military Park and the Natchez Trace Parkway. The Natchez Pilgrimage is the best known of several festivals featuring antebellum homes and gardens.
History
The Indians
The Indians of Mississippi lived in harmony with the environment of the Southern woodlands and took great care to maintain the ecological balance they found in nature. Early European travelers often spoke of the Indians' love for the land and their bravery in defending it.
The Choctaw tribe, which numbered approximately 20,000 and was located primarily in the southern and central part of the state, was the largest of the three major tribes that lived in present-day Mississippi. The other two tribes were the Natchez, which numbered about 4,500 and were centred in southwestern Mississippi, and the Chickasaw, which had a population of about 5,000 and ranged from their principal villages in the northeastern part of the state into Tennessee and Kentucky. The Natchez were virtually exterminated during a war with the French garrison at Fort Rosalie (the present city of Natchez) in 1729–31. The Choctaw and Chickasaw were eventually removed from Mississippi to the Oklahoma territory in the 1830s.
Exploration and settlement
In the winter of 1540 Hernando de Soto led a large expedition into Mississippi and wintered along the Pontotoc River. In the following spring he reached the Mississippi River, but, because he found no gold or silver in the region, Spanish explorers directed their efforts elsewhere.
Nearly 130 years later a small group of French Canadians sailed down the Mississippi River and immediately realized its commercial and strategic importance. In 1699 a French expedition led by Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville established France's claim to the lower Mississippi valley. French settlements were soon established at Fort Maurepas, Mobile, Biloxi, Fort Rosalie, and New Orleans.
Following the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763, France ceded its possessions in the lower Mississippi valley, except New Orleans, to Great Britain, which also gained possession of Spanish Florida and divided that territory into two colonies. One of those was West Florida, which included the area between the Apalachicola and Mississippi rivers. The original northern boundary of West Florida was latitude 31° N, but it was extended in 1764 to 32°28′ N. Fort Rosalie was renamed Fort Panmure, and the Natchez District was established as a subdivision of West Florida. Natchez flourished during the early 1770s. After the outbreak of the American Revolution, Spain regained possession of Florida and occupied Natchez. The Treaty of Paris of 1783 fixed the 31st parallel as the boundary between Spanish Florida and the United States, but Spain continued to occupy Natchez until the dispute was settled in 1798.
Statehood and Civil War
The original Mississippi Territory created by the U.S. Congress in 1798 was a strip of land extending about 100 miles north to south and from the Mississippi River to the Chattahoochee on the Georgia border. The territory was increased in 1804 and 1812 to reach from Tennessee to the Gulf. In 1817 the western part achieved statehood as Mississippi (the eastern part became the state of Alabama in 1819). Natchez, the first territorial capital, was replaced in 1802 by nearby Washington, which in turn was replaced by Jackson in 1822.
The 1820s and '30s were marked by the decline of the Jeffersonian Republicans, the ascendancy of the Jacksonian Democrats, and the removal of the Indians to Oklahoma. They were the days of steamboats, land speculation, and the growth of a plantation-based cotton economy, with its concomitant slave population. Slave owning, however, was not common among the small landowners, who became more numerous than the large planters but who had little influence on public affairs for many years.
Sectionalism in both North and South had been growing for some time. Its ill feelings gradually became dominated in both North and South by slavery. In January 1861, a convention adopted an ordinance of secession, and within a year the state was in the midst of war. The people suffered much privation, and the land underwent great devastation; by 1865 the state was in economic ruin.
The aftermath
For 25 years following the Civil War, Mississippi's former slaves and their former owners grappled with the political, social, and economic consequences of emancipation. The white minority could not or would not accept a biracial society based on equality of opportunity. In 1890 the ruling elite adopted a constitution that established a caste system of racial segregation and an economic order that kept blacks in a position of dependency.
Mississippians hoped to find economic salvation in the coming of industry and the railroads, but the hope was only partially realized. Emancipation had made the former slaves free to go where they wished, but most remained and eventually were absorbed into the tenant-farming system. The continued economic interdependence of the two races kept intact many of the customs and social systems that had developed before the war. The constitution of 1890 effectively disfranchised most of the black population.
World War I hastened the end of Mississippi's physical and psychological isolation, and most of the bitterness remaining from the Civil War was lost in a surge of patriotism. Between the wars the state was affected by the agricultural depression of the 1920s, the devastating 1927 flood, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the coming of farm-production controls, and the beginnings of new industrialization. After World War II government farm programs and mechanization on a broad scale created another agricultural revolution.
After World War II a series of events developed that may be characterized as a revolution in race relations. Many long-accepted practices, customary throughout much of the South, received their first major jolt in 1954 with the U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring racially segregated schools to be unconstitutional. The decision was followed by years of increasing protest against other aspects of segregation and by large-scale registration of black voters. Whites reacted to the black protest against segregation with increasing violence during the early 1960s. In 1962 state officials refused to abide by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered the admission of a black student, James Meredith, to the University of Mississippi. Following a night of rioting during which two people were killed, Meredith was finally admitted and the colour barrier was broken in Mississippi.
The most serious violence occurred in the summer of 1964, when three young civil rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Those murders convinced most white Mississippians that continued resistance and violence was a greater danger to their safety and welfare than was peaceful acceptance of change.
In 1969, under a federal court order, the state's dual segregated school system was unified. Although the great majority of white Mississippians opposed school integration, they adjusted to that change with only minor isolated incidents of violence. Over the next decade Mississippi's long-standing racial traditions and customs were dramatically altered. A succession of enlightened and progressive governors, including Paul B. Johnson, Jr., William L. Waller, William F. Winter, and Ray Mabus, led Mississippi out of its troubled history as a rigidly segregated closed society into a new era of racial cooperation.
After accommodating themselves to such change, Mississippians could at last turn their attention and energy to the development of the state's human and natural resources. Economic development during the 1960s and '70s, though not spectacular, was steady. Out-migration of whites has virtually ceased, and among blacks it has declined significantly. In 1960 Mississippi's income per capita amounted to only 55 percent of the national average, but by 1985 it had risen to 69 percent. This increase was a result of urbanization and industrialization and the decline in agricultural employment.
A development that both paralleled and promoted economic and social progress was the growth of the two-party system. After World War II the Democratic Party lost its monopoly on the state's political process, and the Republican Party now challenges the once-dominant party at every level. This development has shifted the focus of the political debate in Mississippi from a defense of old traditions to a discussion of new alternatives. Although the state's limited natural resources and its long years of agricultural dependency and racial discrimination have left their mark, Mississippi is now largely free of the attitudes and attributes that kept it for so long in the 19th century.
John N. Burrus
David G. Sansing
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