Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take the complexity
of source material, the history, the economics,
the hard data, and try to extract the essential,
fascinating insights you need to understand the
world. And today, we are really undertaking a
massive mission. We are. We're diving into the
stunning contradictions of Mississippi. It truly
is a state defined by these stark contrasts.
I mean, you look at the stack of sources we have.
And on one hand, Mississippi proudly positions
itself as the magnolia state, you know, the birthplace
of America's music. Right. A really rich cultural
identity. A very rich one. And yet simultaneously,
it consistently ranks 50th dead last in the nation
for health care quality. And on top of that,
holds the lowest per capita income. That gap
is just enormous, and that's really the heart
of our mission today. It is. Absolutely. We have
dense historical accounts, recent economic analyses,
political breakdowns, and health reports. Our
mission is to unpack all this material, to trace
the line, to understand precisely how Mississippi's
rich, complex, and, let's be honest, often painful
history directly informs its present -day economy,
its deep health challenges. And this is maybe
the biggest surprise in the whole thing. It really
is. recent dramatic educational successes. We
want to give you a thorough understanding of
this crucial Deep South state. And just to set
the table, the basic geography and demographics
are the starting point. Mississippi is the 32nd
largest state by area and the 35th most populous.
Jackson is the capital and largest city. And
the state motto is Virtute et Armis. Which means
by valor and arms, a motto that, as we'll see,
really reflects a long and very conflicted history.
And before we jump into the physical land itself,
let's start with a quick nugget about the name.
It's derived from the mighty Mississippi River,
which of course forms its entire western border.
Right. European -American settlers named it after
the Ojibwe phrase Missisibi. Which just means
great river. Great river. A great river whose
floods and power really dictated the state's
earliest destiny. So let's start there with those
geographic foundations and natural forces. That
river isn't just a border. It is, in a very real
sense, the fundamental architect of Mississippi's
physical existence. The state is almost entirely
within the Gulf Coastal Plain. Which means it's
fundamentally low -lying. Incredibly low -lying.
The mean elevation is barely 300 feet above sea
level. It's flat. And when we talk about low
elevation we're talking about massive contrasts
within that. The highest point, Woodall Mountain,
is only 807 feet. Which is more of a hill, really.
It's barely a mountain. And the lowest point
is, of course, the Gulf of Mexico at zero feet.
This low -lying nature is so key because it simultaneously
created this unimaginable agricultural wealth
and also baked in a constant devastating vulnerability.
Exactly. And to understand that wealth, we have
to focus on the Mississippi Delta region, this
flat, unbelievably fertile area in the Northwest.
So this is geographically part of the vast Mississippi
Alluvial Plain. What makes it so historically
crucial is the soil composition, right? It's
not just dirt. You have to think of it as a living
geological feature. Right. This land was formed
over millennia by the regular massive flooding
of the Mississippi River. And every time it flooded,
it deposited this incredibly rich, deep, silt
-laden soil across the floodplain. So the floods
were both destructive and creative. Paradoxically,
yes. This bottomland was perfect for demanding
high -yield crops. The regular and sometimes
catastrophic floods were the engine that made
the plantation economy possible. Without that
alluvial plain, cotton is king. It just doesn't
happen the way it did. But the subtropical climate
that supports that agriculture also brings, well,
environmental catastrophe. The climate is humid
subtropical. You get these mild winters, but
then you have long, hot, and just overwhelmingly
humid summers. It's a heavy heat. It is. But
the geographic position near the Gulf Coast and
the vast flat plain make the state highly susceptible
to severe weather. And we're talking about tornadoes
here, primarily. Yes. Mississippi averages about
27 tornadoes annually. And the historical record
is just tragic. Our sources confirm that two
of the five deadliest tornadoes in U .S. history
happened within the state. The first being the
Great Natchez Tornado of 1840. Which killed over
300 people, most of them on flatboats on the
river itself. It was just a horrifying event.
And then you have the Tupelo -Gainesville outbreak
of 1936. This is a state that understands nature's
immediate catastrophic power. And then there
is the threat from the Gulf. It's episodic, but
it's absolutely devastating when it hits. We
have two modern examples that really stand out
in the sources. Hurricane Camille and Hurricane
Katrina. Let's start with Camille. Hurricane
Camille in 1969 hit the coast as a Category 5
storm. The storm surge was estimated to be somewhere
between 15 and 20 feet. It caused immense destruction.
It fundamentally reshaped the Gulf Coast. It
did, and it led to the deaths of 248 people in
Mississippi alone. It was the benchmark for disaster
for a generation. And then the even greater catastrophe
of Katrina in 2005. Katrina was a Category 3
at its final landfall in Mississippi. But because
of its sheer size, it generated this unprecedented
storm surge that swept 90 miles of coastline
clean. Just gone. Gone. We're talking about massive,
nearly total destruction in cities like Gulfport,
Biloxi and Pascagoula. In Mississippi, 238 people
died and the estimated cost was in the tens of
billions. The state had to fundamentally rely
on federal intervention to rebuild. So if that's
the historical pattern, what do the sources tell
us about the long term threat? The one driven
by climate change. What does this low -lying
subtropical state face in the next 50 years?
The data is, it's pretty alarming. An EPA report
specifically singles out Mississippi, along with
other Deep South states, as one of the areas
projected to experience the worst effects of
climate change in the United States. And this
directly impacts the foundation of the state's
economy agriculture. Right. And it's a devastating
paradox, isn't it? It is. How so? Well, the EPA
predicts increased severity of both floods and
droughts. For a state that relies on its alluvial
soil for production, this dual -threat unpredictable
dryness followed by devastating saturation is
going to drastically reduce crop yields and stress
the already vulnerable agricultural sector. And
just living there is going to get harder. Yes,
the overall temperatures will warm, making those
already hot and humid summers more dangerous
for outdoor workers. And for the coast, the threat
of sea level rise isn't abstract. It's immediate.
It is. The sources show sea level is already
rising about one inch every seven years. Given
the flat topography, this is a profound threat.
A small increase in sea level vastly expands
the area that's vulnerable to storm surge during
even moderate tropical storms. So the very foundation
that created the state's historic... wealth is
now the source of its greatest long -term vulnerability.
That's the core tension right there. Okay, so
let's unpack the human history, because the roots
of the modern paradox are right here. We have
to start well before the Europeans ever arrived.
We begin with the Paleo -Indians, dating back
to 9500 BC. And over time, these hunter -gatherer
societies evolved into these very complex successor
cultures. We're talking the woodland and ultimately
the Mississippian eras. Right, beginning around
950 AD. And these were the so -called mound builder
cultures. And what stands out about their societal
organization? I mean, these weren't simple, isolated
groups. Not at all. They were highly sophisticated.
They built these massive, often ceremonial earthworks,
and they maintained extensive trading networks
that connected communities from the Great Lakes
all the way down to the Gulf Coast. They were
trading things like copper shells. Specific raw
materials over vast distances. These cultures
were the direct ancestors of the historic Native
American tribes we recognize today. And those
descendants include the major nations of the
area, like the Chickasaw and the Choctaw, and
then smaller groups like the Natchez, the Yazoo,
and the Biloxi. Then came the European chapter.
While Hernando de Soto's Spanish expedition passed
through in 1540, permanent European settlement
was a French endeavor. Starting in 1699 with
the establishment of Fort Maurepas, or Old Biloxi,
on the Gulf Coast. Exactly. They later founded
Natchez, further upriver, in 1716. And it was
under French and then Spanish rule that a really
unique societal layer developed, especially in
Natchez and along the Gulf. Yes. We are talking
about the Jeanne de Couze Libre, or Free People
of Color. The sources show these were often mixed
race descendants, usually the children of European
men and enslaved or free African women. And unlike
later American Antebellum Society, this group
held a really distinct, acknowledged social capital.
They weren't just free individuals. They often
became the educated professional class artisans,
merchants, property owners, and sometimes even
slave owners themselves. They occupied a status
that was designed to buffer the rigid social
structure between the European elite. and the
enslaved majority. But that demographic setup
was, well, it was unsustainable once the territory
was acquired by the United States. Completely.
That led to a massive influx of European -American
migrants, primarily from older southern states
where decades of tobacco farming had just exhausted
the soil. And these migrants were incredibly
eager to exploit the rich Delta land. And their
arrival immediately put immense aggressive pressure
on the federal government to expel the Native
American tribes. Which culminates in one of the
darkest moments of American history, the Treaty
of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. This resulted
in the forced removal of the Choctaw people,
a part of what became known as the Trail of Tears.
It was a brutal displacement to lands west of
the Mississippi River. But the sources highlight
a critical, nuanced detail in that removal process,
Article 14 of the Trudy. Right. Article 14 was
essentially a mechanism of state coercion. It
stated that those Choctaw who chose to remain
in Mississippi and become U .S. citizens had
to give up their tribal membership and accept
individual land allotments. A divisive and incredibly
painful choice. A terrible choice. The descendants
of those who chose to remain are the contemporary
Mississippi band of Choctaw Indians who retained
a small land base in the central part of the
state, distinct from the majority who were forced
west. If that history sets the stage, the next
era is where the paradox of Mississippi's present
day is truly forged. The rise of cotton and the
immense wealth built on slavery. By the 1850s,
the planters. particularly those who had moved
into the newly cleared and unbelievably fertile
delta regions, became extraordinarily wealthy.
They were profiting from a deadly trifecta. That's
a good way to put it. You had the most fertile
land in the world, extremely high global cotton
prices driven by the textile industry, and of
course the zero -cost labor of hundreds of thousands
of enslaved African Americans. Let's put numbers
to that exploitation because it really defines
the state's identity. The demographic reality
of 1860 is shocking. Out of a total population
of approximately 790 ,000, 55%, that's 436 ,631
people were enslaved. So it was a majority slave
state. It wasn't just a state with slaves. It
was fundamentally a massive successful slave
labor camp. It was the undisputed top cotton
producing state in the entire nation. And connecting
this back to the core mission, that slave derived
wealth was so immense that pre -Civil War, Mississippi
was ranked as the fifth wealthiest state nationally
on a per capita basis. That is the ghost that
still haunts the state's economy. The elite's
reluctance to invest that immense capital into
public infrastructure like railroads or widespread
public education. They invested it in land and
human property. Purely. And that was a short
-sighted decision that starved the state of fundamental
growth mechanisms for the next 150 years. It
leads directly to his modern poverty rankings.
The stage for conflict was set, and Mississippi
was quick to act, becoming the second state to
declare its secession from the Union on January
9, 1861. The Civil War was existential for Mississippi
because of the strategic importance of the river.
The Union objective was crystal clear, gain control
of the Mississippi River to split the Confederacy
in two. Which made the Siege of Vicksburg a lengthy,
pivotal campaign absolutely essential. Its fall
in July 1863 was a turning point in the entire
war. And it's fascinating that even in a state
so dedicated to secession, there were these internal
unionist pockets. Yes. The most famous example
is the so -called Free State of Jones, where
a man named Newton Knight led a band of pro -union
deserters and anti -Confederate neighbors. So
it shows that Mississippi was never a monolith.
Never. Not even during the peak of the conflict,
there were significant class and ideological
splits, particularly among poor white farmers
who did not own slaves and resented the planter
elite. The post -war Reconstruction era, however,
brought a truly revolutionary moment, especially
with the 1868 Constitutional Convention. This
was a brief, brilliant window of radical change.
For the first time, black and white delegates
worked together. And the convention adopted sweeping
reforms designed to build a functioning modern
democracy. They did. They ratified the 14th Amendment.
They adopted universal male suffrage. They removed
property qualifications for voting or holding
office, which was a huge win for poor whites
alongside freedmen. And crucially, they established
the state's first comprehensive public school
system. Mandated for all children, regardless
of race. A truly radical idea for its time and
place. But the sources show that Window was violently
slammed shut by the Democratic backlash. We need
to detail this mechanism of suppression. It was
known as the Mississippi Plan. The Mississippi
Plan was initiated around 1875 by white Democrats
seeking to reclaim political control and to reestablish
white supremacy. It was an organized campaign
of intimidation and violence. And it involved
these paramilitary groups. Most notoriously,
the Red Shirts, who operated in what they called
white line campaigns. How extensive was this
violence? I mean, was it sporadic or was it organized?
It was systematic and lethal. Our sources detailed
the Vicksburg and Clinton massacres of 1874 and
1875, where armed groups suppressed black voting
and killed at least 150 black citizens. So this
was terrorism. It was political terrorism. The
violence and intimidation were so severe that
it suppressed Republican turnout and forced elected
black officials out of office, effectively ending
the biracial government by the end of 1875. And
this political violence then culminates in the
institutionalized legal disenfranchisement that's
codified in the 1890 Constitution. This Constitution
was openly and brutally explicit in its aims.
Democratic Governor James K. Vardaman famously
stated its purpose was to eliminate the nigger
from politics. Just saying it out loud. Right.
But the genius, in a cynical sense, of the 1890
Constitution was its mechanism of disenfranchisement.
It didn't mention race explicitly, which theoretically
made it pass federal scrutiny at the time. So
what were those specific mechanisms? We need
to know the how. There were three main barriers.
First, the imposition of a poll tax, which disproportionately
burdened poor citizens, both black and white.
Second, literacy tests. Right. And third, and
this is the most pernicious, the understanding
clause. This provision required a voter to be
able to read any section of the state constitution
or demonstrate a reasonable understanding of
it when it was read to them. That sounds reasonable
on paper, but the reality was far different.
It was entirely arbitrary. White registrars were
granted total, unchallengeable power to decide
who demonstrated understanding. So if you were
black... You were often given the most obscure,
archaic or complex passages to interpret. If
you were a white farmer who couldn't read, you
might be asked to explain what a ballot was.
And the effect was immediate. It immediately
removed about 100 ,000 black men and notably
50 ,000 core white men from the voter rolls.
It established a single party democratic state
that would last for nearly a century. Let's pick
it back to economics for a moment, because amidst
this political suppression, there was a fleeting
moment of immense economic achievement among
African -Americans, especially in the Delta.
This is one of the great short -lived triumphs
of the post -war era. The Delta was still largely
frontier land and freedmen and white migrants
poured in clearing timber and working incredibly
hard to buy property. And by 1900, the sources
show an astonishing number. Two thirds of the
farm owners in the Mississippi Delta were African
-American. Yeah. It was a massive statement of
independence and economic success. But economic
forces and the structure of debt traps quickly
crushed that success. Unfortunately, falling
global cotton prices in the early 20th century
were devastating, coupled with the lack of access
to credit, the institutionalized disenfranchisement
and the rise of debt peonage systems like sharecropping.
They just couldn't hold on. Most black farmers
couldn't weather the economic storms. They lost
their land and were rapidly pushed back into
landless labor and poverty by the 1920s. And
that complete lack of political rights. Combined
with economic debt traps and violence fueled
the single largest demographic shift in the state's
history. The Great Migration. Exactly. Starting
around 1913 and continuing through 1970, nearly
half a million people, the vast majority African
-American, left Mississippi. They were seeking
not just jobs, but escape. Escape from a violent,
oppressive system where the ability to vote.
to educate their children, to simply live without
fear was impossible. And the impact on the state's
demographics was immediate and transformative.
It was. Mississippi had been a majority black
state since before the Civil War. But due to
this massive exodus, the African -American population
became a minority population in the state after
the 1930s. This flight, driven by lack of opportunity,
fundamentally redefined the state's identity
and its labor pool for the rest of the 20th century.
It's an incredible irony, isn't it, that the
intense conditions of oppression and poverty
we just discussed gave rise to some of the most
influential and foundational American art forms.
It is. Let's talk about that cultural legacy,
starting with music. Mississippi is not just
a birthplace. It is the undisputed birthplace
of the blues. This music emerged directly from
the harsh reality of the Delta, the sharecropping
system, the isolation, the backbreaking labor.
The songs provided a voice to the voiceless.
They did. They give structure and poetry to the
experience of oppression. But the sources also
compel us to look past simple racial categories
and see the cross -pollination that really created
American music. That's where it gets truly interesting.
You see figures like Jimmy Rogers. who is widely
celebrated as the father of country music. Rogers
was white, but he learned from and played with
local black blues musicians. So he was absorbing
their rhythms and structures. Completely. He
was friends with blues legends like Chester Arthur
Burnett, who you'd know as Howlin' Wolf. So this
wasn't segregation. This was cultural fusion
happening despite the intense social segregation.
Exactly. It was the fusion of black musical traditions
with the Scots, Irish folk and hymn traditions
that permeated the white southern communities.
And this blend created the basis for country,
jazz, modern blues and eventually. The ultimate
symbol of this crossover. Tupelo native Elvis
Presley, who brought those Delta sounds to a
massive global multiracial audience, becoming
the king of rock and roll. For listeners who
want to dive into that history physically, the
Mississippi Blues Trail marks over 200 sites
dedicated to this legacy, including key locations
like the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale. Right.
And pivoting from culture to faith, religion
remains perhaps the single most defining social
force in Mississippi today. It is consistently
ranked the most religious state in the U .S.
And the statistics really bear that out. Our
sources show that 59 percent of Mississippians
consider themselves very religious. And 63 percent
report attending church weekly or almost weekly.
That's the highest rate nationally. It is. The
population is overwhelmingly Christian. at 84
% predominantly Protestant, with the Southern
Baptist Convention being the largest single denomination.
And this deep religious foundation has profoundly
shaped the political and social landscape. For
sure. Sources point out that the massive growth
of fundamentalist conservative churches since
the 1970s has directly fueled the conservative
political trends among white residents. But historically,
particularly for African Americans, the church
was the engine of liberation. Precisely. During
the Civil Rights Movement, black churches were
absolutely pivotal. They were the only autonomous
institutions black residents possessed. So there
were communication networks, meeting places.
Shelters. And most importantly, the organizational
hub. for activism and voter registration campaigns
against immense organized resistance. And that
resistance was not just sporadic violence. It
was officially organized and tax supported by
the state itself. That's a critical piece of
context. Yeah. In 1954, the Mississippi State
Sovereignty Commission was created. It was funded
by state taxes claiming to work for state unity.
But its real purpose was something else entirely.
Its real purpose was to operate as a domestic
spy agency. It surveilled thousands of Mississippians
collecting intelligence on anyone suspected of
civil rights activities and use that information
to assist local white citizens councils. What
kind of assistance are we talking about? Well,
they provided funding, organizational support
and crucial intelligence used for economic blackmail.
So, for instance, if a black person tried to
register to vote, the commission might tip off
a local citizens council. And they would then
pressure local banks to deny them loans or fire
them from jobs or cut off their supplies. Exactly.
This was a system designed to suppress activism
through economic starvation. The brutal climax
of this era was the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign,
where students poured into the state to register
voters and set up freedom schools. And Freedom
Summer was met with intense state -sanctioned
violence and chaos. The most famous tragedy,
of course, was the murder of civil rights workers
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner
near Philadelphia, Mississippi. That specific
act of violence, along with countless others,
was broadcast nationally. And it became a crucial
catalyst for the federal government to finally
pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which began
the slow, painful process of undoing the disenfranchisement
of 1890. Now, if we shift from that painful history
to the modern social landscape, there's a demographic
detail that really challenges the monolithic
view of the Deep South. It's one of those moments
where the sources force you to recognize the
complexity of modern identity in the state. Because
historically, Mississippi has been characterized
by deeply conservative social politics rooted
in its dominant religious culture. Right. But
when we look at family structure, Mississippi
actually leads the nation in one specific non
-traditional metric. Which is? The state has
the highest proportion of same -sex couples raising
children in the U .S., hovering around 33%, according
to recent studies. That is surprising. It is.
It suggests a quieter, more resilient, and perhaps
more family -oriented LGBT community than the
national narrative often allows for. Furthermore,
Jackson ranks 10th in the nation for the concentration
of African -American same -sex couples. So it
points to a diverse urban reality that's often
obscured by the rural, socially conservative
politics. Exactly. Let's return to the economic
facts because they really define the state's
current status. We started by noting the tension.
Lowest per capita income, yet high in charitable
contributions. This structural poverty is deeply
managed and often masked by external financial
factors. And the largest factor there is federal
spending. Mississippi's economy is heavily subsidized.
So the state consistently receives one of the
highest ratios of federal spending to taxes received
in the entire nation. It does. In 2005, for example,
largely due to Hurricane Katrina recovery funds,
the state received 2 .02 cents for every dollar
paid in taxes. That ranks second highest nationally.
But that subsidy isn't just disaster relief,
though. It's consistent. It is. A significant
portion comes from large federal installations,
like Camp Shelby and Keesler Air Force Base,
which employ thousands of residents, alongside
federal highway funding and health care expenditures.
Without this federal transfer, the state's economic
standing will be far, far worse. In terms of
actual output, agriculture is still vital. Indeed,
it has specialized. Mississippi is the top producer
of farm -raised catfish nationally, a multimillion
-dollar industry, and it's also a major producer
of sweet potatoes, cotton, and pilot. But speaking
of struggles, let's pivot to how the state chooses
to raise its own revenue, because this is a point
that really demands scrutiny. The sources reveal
a very uncomfortable statistic about taxation.
Yes. We are talking about the retail sales tax
on groceries. Okay. Mississippi levies a 7 %
retail sales tax on groceries, which is the highest
grocery tax in the entire United States. Wait.
So in the poorest state in the country, the sources
show they hit residents with the highest consumption
tax on a necessity on food. How? How does that
make sense? That is the critical question. The
political rationale is that the state relies
heavily on consumption taxes to fund government
services because of its low overall tax base
and low property values. But the economic impact
is clear. A 7 % tax on food is highly regressive.
It places a disproportionately heavy burden on
lower income families who already spend a larger
percentage of their earnings on basic necessities.
The policy choice directly exacerbates the poverty
it is attempting to manage. That reliance on
consumption is why the introduction of entertainment
revenue was so economically transformative. The
1990 decision to legalize casino gambling was
a massive economic pivot. It was a complete game
changer. Legalized gambling along the Mississippi
River Tunica became the massive center of this,
and the Gulf Coast, like Gulfport and Biloxi,
rapidly became major economic drivers. Before
Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi was actually the
second largest gambling state in the U .S. Trailing
only Nevada. That's how big it was. And when
Katrina destroyed the coastal infrastructure...
The law had to change to save that industry.
Exactly. Before Katrina, the casinos had to be
built on burges or floating structures, often
just offshore. When the storm surge wiped them
out, the legislature quickly changed the law,
allowing casinos to rebuild on land, provided
they were within 800 feet of the water. It was
an economic necessity. Completely. Without that
change, the state would have lost its vital gaming
tax revenue entirely. To understand the difficulty
the state has in attracting sustainable high
-wage manufacturing, we have to look at a notorious
failure that cost the state millions. The Greentech
automotive fiasco. Right. This case study is
a perfect example of what can go wrong when high
-stakes incentives are deployed without sufficient
oversight. Greentech Automotive, an electric
car manufacturer, promised to bring a revolutionary
new product and sustainable jobs to Tunica County.
One of the poorest areas of the Delta. Exactly.
The promises were huge. What were the specifics?
The state was promised a $60 million investment
and the creation of 350 full -time jobs. In return,
the company received significant state incentives,
totaling $6 million, including tax breaks and
local bonds. The hope was that this investment
would pull the Delta out of its post -agricultural
slump. And the reality was far removed from the
promise. Far removed. The plant ultimately produced
few, if any, street -legal cars. The state auditor
later found the company was largely a game of
smoke and mirrors. And internal records confirmed
they never employed more than 94 full -time workers
in Mississippi at any point. A huge political
scandal erupted as state officials demanded repayment.
And what was the final resolution on that? After
declaring bankruptcy, the ultimate resolution
was deeply disappointing. A final settlement
in 2020 only returned $575 ,000 back to the state
and county. A fraction of the $6 million in incentives.
A tiny fraction. This failure highlighted the
vulnerability of Mississippi to high -risk speculative
manufacturing investments and the difficulty
in realizing promised job creation. Let's turn
now to the political landscape. Because despite
the economic and social struggles, the state
has recently addressed some of its most entrenched
historic barriers to democracy. First, we have
to acknowledge the ongoing context of voting
barriers. Mississippi is ranked the fourth hardest
state for citizens to vote in, partly due to
the residual complexity of its voting laws. And
it also continues to have the highest rate of
African -American disenfranchisement in the U
.S. Estimated at around 16 percent. primarily
due to laws that bar convicted felons from voting
unless their rights are restored. However, a
massive historical wrong was finally righted
in 2020 regarding gubernatorial elections. This
takes us directly back to that 1890 Jim Crow
constitution. This is a remarkable story of institutional
inertia finally being overcome. The 1890 Constitution
mandated an explicitly Jim Crow -era election
law for the governor, sometimes called Mississippi's
own electoral college. So a candidate had to
win both the statewide popular vote and a majority
of the 122 districts in the state House of Representatives.
Right, and this was designed to minimize black
political power. By requiring a candidate to
win district majorities, the law ensured that
state representatives, who often represented
districts, carefully gerrymandered to suppress
black influence. could overturn the statewide
popular will. If no candidate met both requirements,
the House got to choose the winner. It was a
political safety valve. A safety valve designed
to prevent an African -American candidate, even
one who won the popular vote, from taking the
state's highest office. But the people finally
spoke in 2020. They did. In the statewide referendum,
79 % of Mississippians voted to remove this antique
racist election law. So now the state simply
requires a runoff election if no candidate wins
the majority. Yes, thereby dismantling a century
-old institutional barrier to political equality.
It was a huge step. And this move to remove historical
barriers contrasts sharply with the state's continued
passage of restrictive social laws. We have to
look at HB 1523 from 2016. HB 1523, the Protecting
Freedom of Conscience from Government Forced
Action. Act was one of the most comprehensive
religious freedom laws passed in the U .S. It
codified three specific religious or moral beliefs.
That marriage is between a man and a woman. That
sexual relations should only occur within such
a marriage. And that gender is determined by
the sex assigned at birth. And what did the law
allow in practice? It allowed individuals and
businesses to refuse services to same -sex couples
or transgender individuals based on those codified
religious beliefs. This included employment decisions,
housing decisions by landlords, and refusal of
services by wedding vendors. And it was challenged,
but what was the outcome? Although it was initially
blocked by a federal judge, a federal appeals
court upheld the law in 2017, arguing the plaintiffs
lacked standing to challenge it, which means
the law remains in effect today. Finally, we
must note the impact Mississippi has had on national
jurisprudence, specifically regarding its penal
system. The 2021 U .S. Supreme Court ruling in
Jones v. Mississippi upheld a state law allowing
judges to impose mandatory life imprisonment
without parole for children convicted of murder,
even when the judge did not specifically find
the offender was permanently incorrigible. So
you have these contrasting actions, removing
historical voting barriers while simultaneously
upholding restrictive social and penal laws.
It shows the complex, divided political soul
of the modern state. Okay, now we arrive at the
central, painful contradiction of the state today.
We've seen the historical drivers of poverty,
but let's examine the dire results in public
health. Mississippi ranks 50th last place among
all U .S. states for health care. The data is
not just core. It is catastrophic. Mississippi
has the highest rates nationally for infant and
neonatal deaths, which speaks volumes about maternal
health and prenatal care access. And on top of
that, it records the highest death rates from
major chronic conditions. Heart disease, hypertension,
diabetes, and adult inactivity. It's across the
board. The obesity crisis is not just an indicator.
It's a deep, entrenched public health emergency.
It is persistent. The sources show that for three
consecutive years, more than 30 percent of Mississippi
residents were classified as obese, leading the
nation during that period. And the contributing
factors are structural, rooted in the socioeconomic
framework. We need to connect the dots here.
What are the specific structural issues fueling
these health outcomes? Well, the lack of medical
care accessibility is key. Mississippi is a state
that has consistently declined to expand Medicaid
under the Affordable Care Act. Which leaves hundreds
of thousands of low -income residents without
affordable coverage. And? In compounding this,
rural areas, particularly in the Delta, suffer
from hospital closures, meaning emergency and
preventative care often requires traveling hundreds
of miles. And beyond just clinical care, there
are also the factors tied to food and the environment.
Absolutely. You see widespread poverty that limits
access to healthy foods, which leads to the proliferation
of food deserts areas where residents lack easy
access to supermarkets and fresh produce. So
they're relying on high calorie, low nutrient
convenience store options. Exactly. And previous
intervention strategies have often failed because
they were not culturally sensitive or practical
for low income, geographically isolated African
-American populations. The crisis is not just
medical. It's a direct result of political and
economic. structural decisions. This is the shadow
side of the state, firmly rooted in its history
of systemic poverty. But we pivot now to the
area where Mississippi has achieved stunning,
rapid success, education. The state has engineered
a turnaround so profound, it's now referred to
as the Mississippi miracle. And to appreciate
the miracle, you really have to remember the
low starting point. Historically, education was
segregated until the late 1960s. When integration
finally arrived, the subsequent white flight
to private segregation academies in many areas
destabilized and starved public school funding
for decades. And their academic results reflected
this instability for a long time. They did. As
recently as 2007, Mississippi was ranked among
the absolute worst in the nation. They scored
the lowest of any state on the National Assessments
of Educational Progress, or NAEP. In both math
and science, and they had the lowest average
ACT scores. Students were performing a full grade
level below the national average. It was a crisis.
So how did they pull off this extraordinary turnaround?
We need to know the specific policy and curriculum
changes that drove this success. This is the
core nugget of knowledge from this section. The
dramatic educational transformation is attributed
to a series of focused state -level policy changes
implemented starting around 2013. This wasn't
just an incremental adjustment. It was a fundamental
pedagogical shift. And what was the flagship
policy behind this? The flagship was the Literacy
-Based Promotion Act. or LBPA. This law instituted
a strict third grade reading gate. Meaning if
students can't demonstrate basic reading proficiency
by the end of third grade, they generally are
not promoted to the fourth grade. That's right.
It put an intense focus on early literacy and
high quality instruction from day one. And what
accompanied that reading gate? It wasn't just
the one policy. No, the state mandated the adoption
of high quality research based curricula across
districts, specifically focusing on the science
of reading. They also introduced new rigorous
accountability systems for schools and provided
intensive training for teachers in these new
curricula. So it was a statewide multimillion
dollar investment focused squarely on elementary
reading skills. It was a very focused. And the
results were almost immediate and sustained.
They were stark. By 2024, in those crucial NAEP
scores, which are the national benchmark, Mississippi
students were performing a half -grade level
above the average U .S. student. Going from last
place to above the national average in a single
decade, especially given the state's severe poverty
challenges, is just, it's an astonishing, unprecedented
reversal of fortune. It really is. What a journey
through contrast and contradiction. So to summarize,
We have a state defined by its foundational culture,
its music, its deep religious faith and its unique
river fed geography. But a state still fundamentally
navigating the immense economic and social burdens
left by a history rooted in massive scale plantation
agriculture and the extreme racial disenfranchisement
codified in 1890. It's a place where immense
historical wealth contrasts so sharply with modern
poverty, where structural decisions like the
highest grocery tax in the nation exacerbate
the underlying issues, and where political progress,
like removing the Jim Crow election law, moves
forward while social barriers like HB 1523 remain
in place. Yet, the existence of the Mississippi
miracle in education gives us this tangible proof
that systemic, intentional change is possible,
even in the most entrenched environments. And
that leads to our final provocative thought for
you, the listener, to mull over long after this
deep dive is complete. Okay. Mississippi has
successfully engineered a dramatic educational
miracle in a single decade, moving from the very
bottom to above the national average. Given that
incredible achievement, which required political
will, specific policy implementation, and dedicated
resource allocation, what does this reveal about
the sheer difficulty, complexity, and perhaps
the political resistance involved in addressing
its parallel and equally entrenched crisis in
public health, where it remains firmly ranked
last in the nation? What is the secret to scaling
one remarkable success, moving the academic needle?
to solve the other deeply embedded life and death
problem of public wellness. Something to ponder
as you connect the history of the Delta to the
data of today. We appreciate you joining us for
this rigorous look into the heart of the Deep
South.