Mississippi

Native Americans lived in the area that became the southern state of Mississippi from at least the 11th century. It was later settled by the French in 1699. With the increase in European settlers in 1817, Mississippi was admitted to the Union. Until the Civil War, Mississippi was a society divided between the whites and the slaves, and there were further divisions. In the white community, the small number of wealthy whites controlled large cotton plantations and other farms. They owned large numbers of household slaves as well as servants, who took care of most household chores, including bringing up their children. Many middle-class whites also owned slaves, and indeed some poor whites owned slaves—but for the latter, these were generally to help on farms, not in the home. Within the slave communities, although mothers did as much as they could to look after their own children, the constant sale of slaves meant that families could be separated at the whim of the slave owner.

The Civil War led to a collapse of much of the plantation aristocracy that had controlled political life before the war, but the Reconstruction did lead to the emergence of a commercial elite who employed servants rather than slaves. The war also led to the end of slavery, and for the first time, African Americans in Mississippi began to have a role in determining their own lifestyle.

During the late 19th century and the early 20th century, many Mississippians had large families. The future writer and Nobel laureate William Faulkner was born at New Albany in 1897 (as William Falkner), one of four brothers; and the African American writer, Richard Wright, author of Native Son (1940), was born in 1908 at Natchez, the son of former slaves. His father abandoned the family to find work, and his mother, a schoolteacher, had to bring up Richard and his two brothers alone. Elvis Presley, who was born in poverty in 1935 at Tupelo, was an only son; his twin brother was stillborn.

In 2007 in Mississippi, 21.6 percent of residents were below the poverty level; 31 percent of children lived in poor families, and 78 percent of those families were headed by a single parent. In 2008, a total of 12.9 percent of households included a single parent and children (40.2 percent of all households with [Page 780]children). As of 2007, 10.7 percent of the population age 15 and over had been divorced. The average household size was 2.6.

Compared to white non-Hispanic women, African American women are more likely to be uninsured (27 percent versus 16 percent), more likely to be poor (35.8 percent versus 22.5 percent), more likely to have late initiation of prenatal care (22.8 percent versus 9.2 percent) and more likely to have a low birthweight baby (15.6 percent versus 8.7 percent).

The unemployment rate in 2007 was 6.3 percent (the second highest nationally) and the median household income $36,338 (the lowest in the nation). In 2008, 53.9 percent of women were in the civilian labor force. An very conservative society, Mississippi became the last state in the Union at that time (in 1918) to introduce a law for compulsory education for all children from the ages of 6–17. There are still heated debates about sex education in schools in Mississippi, as well as widespread opposition to abortion. It was not until 1966 that Mississippi changed its abortion law to allow abortion in cases of rape. The state requires women seeking abortions to undergo counseling and delays, restricts insurance coverage for abortion, and prohibits the use of public facilities for abortion.

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