Mississippi house to hold redistricting session at site of Jim Crow era capitol

Lawmakers to convene for special session to redraw state supreme court districts at building with racist history

When Mississippi lawmakers met in 1861 and voted to secede from the union in an effort to continue enslaving people, they did so in what is now known as the Old Capitol Museum. From 1839 to 1903, lawmakers met at a building that witnessed some of the state’s most racist history.

And now, on 20 May, when members of Mississippi’s house convene for a special session to redraw state supreme court districts, they will do so at the Old Capitol, ostensibly because of renovations in the house chamber.

“And now they plan to do it in the Old Capitol, the same building where Mississippi voted to secede from the Union over slavery, and where white supremacist delegates crafted the 1890 Constitution that stripped Black citizens of their voting rights and ushered in decades of poll taxes, literacy tests and racial terror,” Taylor said in a statement. “Rep Kabir Karriem is right. It is a slap in the face to the 1.2 million African Americans in this state. It is also a confession. They are returning to the scene of the crime to try and finish the job.”