Mississippi students are being neglected the powerfulness and fullness of their history. It is vitally important that the contours of our state be highly publicized. Many people living all across the nation have come from the vast southern region of Mississippi. Our history, as Mississippians, gives knowledge about past events, people, places, and cultures. It reveals society’s identity as well as the individuals who are part of it. Unfortunately, most of Mississippi history has been covered up, ignored, or not given justice in textbooks, historical museums, or any other avenue that is conducive to learning. There are negative connotations about our state and its people that stem from misconceptions and incorrect analogous statements about the state’s history.
For a long time, and prevalent today, most students of color in the public, private, and charter school systems learn or are taught a one-sided, Euro-American version of Mississippi history that can be very deceiving. The moment has come now that the other side of our state history is broadcast to all Mississippi students starting from the beginning.
As you may know the territory of Mississippi achieved statehood in 1817. But did you know that blacks and Native Americans made and built this great state? This sacred land was inhabited by the Native Americans until greedy settlers came to strike it rich with flourishing cotton plantations established in Natchez and in the Delta region. Those cotton plantations were worked by the backbreaking labor of slaves.
The Delta is said to have the richest soil in the world. To this day, the Delta is referred to as the cotton capital of the world. But who is responsible for the Delta being acclaimed the cotton kingdom of the world? Whose land was it originally and who worked that land to supply the needs and services to produce the goods?
Not discrediting the contributions of Caucasians, but it seems that when speaking of history, other ethnic groups are left out. People of color, throughout Mississippi’s history, have been great contributors and achievers for the improvement of our state.
Students need to know about Biddy Mason, a slave that traveled on a treacherous Journey to the California Gold Rush and became a wealthy entrepreneur and philanthropist. She founded the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, California.
Students need to know why Mississippi was one of the rebellious states that seceded from the Union, and not just know the dates and facts. Why was Mississippi’s very own, Jefferson Davis, elected president of the Confederate States of America? Problem posing questions, such as these, that invoke critical thinking should be harnessed to better understand the history and the people of our state.
They have to know about Hiram R. Revels, first black U.S. senator who represented the state and people of color in Congress during the Reconstruction period. Along with him was Blanche K. Bruce, the first black senator to serve a full term.
Needless to say, even though we are forty plus years removed, they have to know of the relentless efforts of the civil rights campaigns that occurred in almost every county in the state. It was not just Alabama and Georgia fighting for equal rights but it was Mississippi, too.
We have produced some of the greatest pioneers and grassroots organizers to date. Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), a third political party that was organized by ordinary citizens to combat the injustices and inequalities of segregation, is considered the most successful civil rights campaigns.
Three bodacious women led the party in their challenges to unseat incumbents by running against them. Preceived as outcasts who were civil disobedient, Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine, and Victoria Gray, first black to run for state senate, were the first of their kind ever to be seated on the Congress floor to testify that the elections in Mississippi were based on fraudulent activity because blacks were lawfully not allowed to vote. Fannie Lou Hamer told America that she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
The efforts of the MFDP and other contributing factors prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson in urging Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Now the question comes to mind: why was voting so important? Why did blacks risk losing their jobs, lives, families, and livelihood just in order to use their voting privileges? But the question to really ask is why white Mississippians denied them their right to vote in the first place?
Mississippi, in 1890, was the first state to enact in its constitution, a literacy test as a requirement for blacks to vote. The secret is that voting is a silent voice that speaks on your behalf to influence public policy that benefits or effects you directly or indirectly.
For people of color, voting is most essential simply because if people that cannot relate to our needs and concerns are making governmental decisions, then re-enslavement takes place. This is not exactly physical bondage but a societal and mental bondage where people make decisions for us that is not in our best interest or could be to our detriment. It will show up in education, healthcare, the economy, taxes, and etc. This is a mechanism of control that can be utilized by those in public office who cannot share in the concerns of the populace. We live in a democracy where government is supposed to be reflective of the people.
A Lexington, Miss. native, Quin’Nita Cobbins is a junior history major at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. and a United Negro College Fund/Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow for 2008-2010.
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