Mississippi becomes 9th state re-admitted after the Civil War.

During the Civil War, 55% of Mississippi’s population were slaves. Think about that, there were more slaves than there were whites, yet they stayed enslaved. Mississippi left the Union to fight with the Confederacy for the right to own slaves, as plantation owners earned their wealth from the cotton fields the black slaves labored in. As history unfolded, the Confederate States would lose, and under certain guidelines were accepted back in the Union.

On this day February 17th, in 1870, Mississippi is re-admitted into the U.S. Mississippi was the quintessential Southern State which had the Jim Crow Laws imposed on them beginning in 1876. Jim Crow Laws applied to only the southern states and maintained that African-Americans were separate but equal.  This meant that blacks and whites did not share water fountains, bathrooms and schools.

Mississippi had lost in the Civil War; thus, they were at the whim of the much larger Union. However, extreme racism continued through the south with lynchings and beatings. Nonetheless, having the states together again certainly was a drastic improvement over the conditions at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Some amazing things have come from Mississippi, perhaps caused by the woes of the slaves. The blues originated in the cotton fields, and it was in this fashion that the slaves would communicate with one another.