Mississippi Studies Final Exam 2025 | 2nd semester

Thurogood Marshall

first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States

Ida B. Wells

African American teacher and journalist. published statistics about lynching, urged African Americans to protest by refusing to ride streetcars or shop in white owned stores

Plessy vs. Ferguson

(1896) The Court ruled that segregation was not discriminatory (did not violate black civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendemnt) provide that blacks received accommodations equal to those of whites.

Brown vs. Board of Education

1954- court decision that declared state laws segregating schools to be unconstitutional. Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Emmit Till

African American boy who was murdered in 1955 for whistling at a white women. He was only fourteen.

Thea Bowman

-Religious Sister and Servant of God, teacher, and scholar

-Made a major contribution to the ministry of the Catholic Church to her fellow African Americans; became an evangelist among her people and was a popular speaker on faith and spirituality in her final years

-Helped found the National Black Sisters Conference to provide support for African-American women in Catholic religious institutes

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederate States of America. Mississippi Senator.

Ulysses S. Grant

an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869-1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.

Shilo

Civil War Battle in Tennessee that was fought when Confederate Troops ambushed Union Troops on their way to capture the railroad terminal of Corinth, Mississippi.

Corinth

The railroad-centered town in the northern part of Mississippi that General Grant wanted to capture to cut off the major distribution abilities of the Confederacy.

Natchez

The original capital of Mississippi when the area was first a territory of the U.S. before becoming a state.

1798

The year that Mississippi became a territory of the U.S.

December 10, 1817

On what date did MS become a state?

April 12, 1861 - April 9, 1865

Dates of the Civil War

Jim Crow Laws

Laws designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites

13th Amendment (1865)

abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States

Sharecropper

A person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.

carpetbagger

A northerner who went to the South immediately after the Civil War; especially one who tried to gain political advantage or other advantages from the disorganized situation in southern states

Klu Klux Klan

A secret organization that used terrorist tactics in an attempt to restore white supremecy in the South after the Civil War.

Antebellum

Belonging to a period before a war especially the American Civil War

The Reconstruction Period

The period after the Civil War in which the states formerly part of the Confederacy were brought back into the United States.

Andrew Johnson

17th President of the United States, A Southerner from Tennessee, as Vice President when Lincoln was killed, he became president. He opposed radical Republicans who passed the Reconstruction Acts over his veto. The first U.S. president to be impeached, he survived the Senate removal by only one vote.

Reconstruction Acts

1867 - Pushed through congress over Johnson's veto, it gave radical Republicans complete military control over the South and divided the South into five military zones, each headed by a general with absolute power over his district.

Vicksburg

Grant besieged the city from May 18 to July 4, 1863, until it surrendered, yielding command of the Mississippi River to the Union. The key to the Mississippi River.

Albert Sydney Johnston

A Confederate general who led a surprise attack on Grant's forces at the Battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded in the leg and bled to death while commanding his troops.

Hurricane Katrina

August 29, 2005

A large hurricane caused major destruction and loss of life along the Gulf Coast. It is the greatest natural disaster in Mississippi state history.

The Great Flood

In 1927, a massive amount of rainfall caused the Mississippi River to burst through its levees, resulting in the most destructive river flood in U.S. history. This flood claimed nearly 250 lives and destroyed over 130,000 homes.

82

The number of counties in Mississippi.

The Magnolia

The state flower and tree of Mississippi.

The Mockingbird

State bird of Mississippi

Hernando de Soto

Spanish Conquistador; explored in 1540's from Florida west to the Mississippi with six hundred men in search of gold; discovered the Mississippi River.

Zachary Taylor

(1849-1850), Whig president who was a war hero (Mexican-American War). Won the 1848 election. The father-in-law of Jefferson Davis.

Chattel Slavery

Absolute legal ownership of another person, including the right to buy or sell that person.

Natchez Trace

The overland route followed a northeasterly path beginning in Natchez, Mississippi, and ending in Nashville, Tennessee.

Indian Removal Act

(1830) A congressional act pushed by President Andrew Jackson that authorized the removal of Native Americans who lived east of the Mississippi River

Missouri Compromise

"Compromise of 1820" over the issue of slavery in Missouri. It was decided Missouri entered as a slave state and Maine entered as a free state and all states North of the 36th parallel were free states and all South were slave states.

20th

The numerical order in which Mississippi joined as a state.

Free Soilers

People who opposed expansion of slavery into western territories

abolitionists

people who believed that slavery should be against the law

Abraham Lincoln

16th President of the United States saved the Union during the Civil War and emancipated the slaves.

Emancipation Proclamation

Proclamation issued by President Lincoln, freeing all slaves in areas still at war with the Union.

The 5 major lakes in Mississippi are designed to control flooding from the rivers.

Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake, Enid Lake, Grenada Lake, and Ross Barnett Reservoir

Name 5 major rivers in Mississippi.

Mississippi, Tennessee, Pearl, Big Black, and Hatchie Rivers.

The largest indian mound in Mississippi.

The Great Emerald Mound

The native american tribe that constructed the greatest number of indian mounds in Mississippi.

The Natchez

Eli Whitney

Invented the cotton gin

Cotton Gin

A machine for cleaning the seeds from cotton fibers, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793

Mexican Petite

Cotton seed developed by Dr. Rush Nutt from seeds bought from Mexico by Walter Burling, which was ideally suited for Mississippi's climate.

Segregation

Separation of people based on racial, ethnic, or other differences

John C. Breckinridge

Democratic candidate for President in 1860 who won the election in the state of Mississippi.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.

Popular Sovereignty

a belief in the Antebellum Period that new states should be able to choose if they should enter the Union as a slave or free state

lynching

putting a person to death by mob action, most likely hanging, without due process of law

Monopoly

the exclusive ownership or control of a product or industry by one company or group

Great Migration

movement of over 300,000 African American from the rural south into Northern cities between 1914 and 1920

poll tax

this had to be paid before a person could vote, which was used to keep poor people from being able to vote in Mississippi, especially black people.

Railroad tracks

There were more of these in the state of Mississippi in 1883 than in any other state.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

An interracial organization founded in 1909 to work for the abolition of segregation and discrimination.

Theodore G. Bilbo

The 39th and 43rd Governor of Mississippi and U.S. Senator, who was extremely racist and worked to keep Jim Crow laws active in the state. He was openly a leader in the KKK.

the murder of (14 year old) Emmett Till

Considered by some historians to be the event that launched the Civil Rights Movement.

The double jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution

This prevented the murderers of Emmett Till from being retried after confessing to his murder in a magazine.

Mississippi's Compulsory Attendance Law

Passed in 1979, this states that all children between the ages of 6 and 17 must be enrolled in some type of education program.

Tate Reeves

The current governor of Mississippi, who is the 65th.

The Democratic Party

What political party has dominated Mississippi politics for the state's entire history?

forage

To secure food by stripping the countryside of edible goods, especially in wartime.

1822

The year that the capital of Mississippi was moved to Jackson.

39.8%

What percentage of the popular vote did Abraham Lincoln receive in the election of 1860?

absolute location

Precise location of a place, usually defined by latitude and longitude.

eon

a vast, long period of time

flora

the natural vegetation of a region

fauna

all the animal life in a particular region

What hemispheres is Mississippi located in?

The Northern and Western Hemispheres.

What technology can we use to determine: latitude, longitude, and elevation?

(GPS) Global Positioning Satellites

How does Mississippi rank in size among states?

It is the 32nd largest state.

Spanish word for conqueror. These soldiers explored Mississippi in the 1600's.

Conquistadors

The Green Corn Ceremony

The most important ritual among the southeastern Indians was held in late August in anticipation of a bountiful harvest.

Mississippian Indians included these three main tribes.

The Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Natchez

stickball

The most popular sport among the Mississippi Indians.

Chucalissa

The closest large Indian ruins to Sacred Heart of a Mississippian Culture, which was a thriving village from around 1000 to 1550 AD.

Edgefield

The closest Indian Mounds to Sacred Heart School.

The word "Mississippi" means this

gathering of waters or Father of Waters

Delta-Yazoo Basin Region

West of the loess Bluffs and north of Vicksburg, include some of the most fertile soil in the world. This is the section of Mississippi that Desoto County is located in.

loess soil

windblown dust that accumulates and forms a ridge of bluffs as it approaches higher elevations

Tributaries

smaller streams and rivers that flow into a main river

reservoirs

Man-made lakes where water is collected and kept in quantity for use. There are 6 of these located in Mississippi.

Arkabutka Lake

The closest reservoir to Sacred Heart School. It was created by damming the Coldwater River.

Forsests

65% of Mississippi's land surface is covered by this.

The Grand Village of The Natchez

The largest Native American Village in Mississippi.

The Trail of Tears

The Cherokee Indians were forced to leave their lands. They traveled from North Carolina and Georgia through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas-more than 800 miles (1,287 km)-to the Indian Territory. More than 4, 00 Cherokees died of cold, disease, and lack of food during the 116-day journey.

casquette girl

As many as 500 young women were brought to the French colony in Mississippi to marry single men. Each was given a casquette (small suitcase) with a wedding dress and personal articles.

annexation

adding territory to an existing governmental unit

aquaculture

the commercial production of freshwater animals, like catfish, and aquatic plants

Black Codes

a set of laws that governed and regulated the lives of freedmen in Mississippi and after the Civil War.

Black Exodus

the migration of blacks, mostly farm workers, from Mississippi to Kansas and other mid-western states after Reconstruction

Cartography

science or art of making maps

boycott

to protest by refusing to use or buy a good or service

centennial

100th anniversary

President Andrew Jackson

The president who passed the Indian Removal Act and caused the Trail of Tears.

freedman

name given to former slaves after passage of 13th Amendment

6/7

The greatest number ever conceived of.