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Timeline: Inside Mississippi’s Racial Voter Intimidation History

This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their Jackson newsletter, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.

Mississippi has a long history of voter suppression. An 1890 rule that permanently strips people convicted of certain crimes of their right to vote remains in the state’s constitution. This practice, called felony disenfranchisement, impacts an estimated 55,000 people today. State lawmakers in 2024 considered, then rejected, lifting the voting ban for some nonviolent offenses.

An illustration from an 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly shows freedmen and U.S. Colored Troops veterans exercising their newly granted right to vote.  Image A.R. Waud/Harper’s Weekly, via Smithsonian Museum of American History  ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History-.jpg?fit=208%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History-.jpg?fit=711%2C1024&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History-.jpg?resize=711%2C1024&ssl=1″ alt=”An illustrated magazine cover shows an older Black man at a voting station. The top of the image reads “Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization.”” class=”wp-image-212154″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History-.jpg?resize=711%2C1024&ssl=1 711w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History-.jpg?resize=208%2C300&ssl=1 208w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History-.jpg?resize=768%2C1106&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History-.jpg?resize=400%2C576&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History-.jpg?w=833&ssl=1 833w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Harpers_A.R.-Waud-Harpers-Weekly-via-Smithsonian-Museum-of-American-History–711×1024.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 711px) 100vw, 711px”>An illustration from an 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly shows freedmen and U.S. Colored Troops veterans exercising their newly granted right to vote.  Image A.R. Waud/Harper’s Weekly, via Smithsonian Museum of American History 

When Mississippi was admitted to the union in 1817, White men reserved decision-making power for themselves. After the Civil War, they used violence, terror and Jim Crow laws to keep power in their own hands and out of the hands of the formerly enslaved Black people who outnumbered them. Here is a quick look at how voting intimidation and voting rights have evolved through the last 150 years.

1865: The Civil War ended, freeing enslaved people in Mississippi and starting the period known as Reconstruction. Enslaved Black people accounted for 55% of the state population in 1860.

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1866: A federal civil rights bill is passed. At the same time, the White-controlled Mississippi government created “Black Codes,” which criminalized behaviors and

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