1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,200
Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:08,520 --> 00:00:12,000
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

3
00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:15,640
Speaker 1: show that proves it's never too late to make history.

4
00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:20,400
Speaker 1: I'm Gay Blusier, and today we're exploring why it took

5
00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:24,079
Speaker 1: Mississippi nearly a century and a half to approve the

6
00:00:24,120 --> 00:00:29,120
Speaker 1: amendment outlawing slavery. Despite which you might think racism wasn't

7
00:00:29,160 --> 00:00:33,680
Speaker 1: the only reason for the delay. Good old bureaucratic incompetence

8
00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:44,840
Speaker 1: was in the mix as well. The day was March sixteenth,

9
00:00:45,159 --> 00:00:49,800
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five. The state of Mississippi finally voted to

10
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:54,600
Speaker 1: ratify the thirteenth Amendment, one hundred and thirty years after

11
00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:58,840
Speaker 1: its passage. When the amendment to abolish slavery was first

12
00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:02,520
Speaker 1: put to vote in eighteen sixty five, Mississippi was one

13
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:07,480
Speaker 1: of four states to reject its ratification. The other three holdouts,

14
00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:12,560
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky later ratified the amendment symbolically,

15
00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:15,720
Speaker 1: as did all the other states that joined the Union

16
00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:18,760
Speaker 1: after the vote was held. By the close of the

17
00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:23,479
Speaker 1: twentieth century, Mississippi was the lone exception, the only state

18
00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:27,920
Speaker 1: out of fifty to have never formally consented to abolition.

19
00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:32,520
Speaker 1: Shortly after the Confederacy's defeat in the American Civil War,

20
00:01:32,800 --> 00:01:36,560
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth Amendment was drafted to abolish slavery throughout the

21
00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:40,800
Speaker 1: United States, with one notable exception. The text of the

22
00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:46,800
Speaker 1: Amendment reads as follows. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except

23
00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:49,880
Speaker 1: as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have

24
00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:54,040
Speaker 1: been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or

25
00:01:54,080 --> 00:01:58,640
Speaker 1: any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress passed the amendment

26
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:02,680
Speaker 1: on January thirty first, eighteen sixty five, but in order

27
00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:05,400
Speaker 1: for it to be added to the Constitution, it first

28
00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:08,880
Speaker 1: had to be ratified by three fourths of the existing states,

29
00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:12,239
Speaker 1: which at the time was twenty seven out of thirty six.

30
00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:17,359
Speaker 1: Mississippi was always considered a long shot for ratification, as

31
00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:21,160
Speaker 1: its economy had been largely dependent on slavery for decades.

32
00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:25,600
Speaker 1: Most of the state's enslaved workforce had already been emancipated

33
00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:29,000
Speaker 1: by the time of the vote. However, the state's lawmakers

34
00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:32,760
Speaker 1: still held a grudge, believing they should have been reimbursed

35
00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:36,720
Speaker 1: for the value of the people set free. That racist

36
00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:40,919
Speaker 1: sense of entitlement led the Mississippi legislature to vote against

37
00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:45,320
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth Amendment that December. However, the amendment still gotten

38
00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:47,960
Speaker 1: more than enough votes from the other states to secure

39
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:52,239
Speaker 1: its ratification. As for the other three states that rejected

40
00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:55,720
Speaker 1: the amendment, they eventually changed their minds and ratified it,

41
00:02:55,919 --> 00:03:00,000
Speaker 1: though some took much longer than others. New Jersey ratify

42
00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:03,799
Speaker 1: the amendment in eighteen sixty six, just nine months after

43
00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:07,560
Speaker 1: the initial vote. Delaware, on the other hand, didn't get

44
00:03:07,560 --> 00:03:11,120
Speaker 1: around to it until nineteen oh one, and Kentucky waited

45
00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:15,480
Speaker 1: all the way until nineteen seventy six. That just left

46
00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:19,639
Speaker 1: Mississippi as the only state seemingly opposed to the end

47
00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:24,280
Speaker 1: of slavery. You might imagine that Kentucky's late vote may

48
00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:27,120
Speaker 1: have inspired Mississippi to get its own house in order,

49
00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:29,760
Speaker 1: but it was actually a different state that lent a

50
00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:33,080
Speaker 1: helping hand. In nineteen ninety four, a clerk in the

51
00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:38,280
Speaker 1: Texas Legislature named Gregory Watson discovered that Mississippi still hadn't

52
00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:41,840
Speaker 1: ratified the amendment. He then passed along the news to

53
00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,760
Speaker 1: every black member of the Mississippi legislature, along with a

54
00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:49,000
Speaker 1: draft of a resolution that could be quickly adopted to

55
00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:54,200
Speaker 1: rectify the matter. Democratic State Senator Hillman Frasier presented the

56
00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:57,040
Speaker 1: measure the following year, and though some of his white

57
00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:59,960
Speaker 1: colleagues considered the symbolic vote to be a waste of time,

58
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:04,520
Speaker 1: time Fraser insisted, saying, quote, it's never a waste of

59
00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:08,800
Speaker 1: time to correct a wrong. In the end, the Mississippi

60
00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:13,280
Speaker 1: Senate unanimously approved the resolution, and on March sixteenth, nineteen

61
00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:17,359
Speaker 1: ninety five, the State House did the same. That should

62
00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:20,920
Speaker 1: have been the end of Mississippi's long journey to ratification,

63
00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:25,679
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. That's because, for some unknown reason, state

64
00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:28,640
Speaker 1: officials never sent a copy of the resolution to the

65
00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:33,640
Speaker 1: federal registrar. As a result, the ratification was never recorded

66
00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:39,520
Speaker 1: nor officially signed into law. Mississippi's oversight was ultimately corrected

67
00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:43,360
Speaker 1: eighteen years later, thanks to the help of two Mississippi

68
00:04:43,440 --> 00:04:48,120
Speaker 1: residents and a Steven Spielberg movie. One of those residents

69
00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:51,680
Speaker 1: was doctor Ranjan Batra, a professor in the Department of

70
00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:56,719
Speaker 1: Neurobiology and Anatomical Sciences at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

71
00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:00,159
Speaker 1: In November of twenty twelve, Batra went to see the

72
00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:05,279
Speaker 1: new movie Lincoln, Steven Spielberg's Oscar nominated biopic about President

73
00:05:05,320 --> 00:05:09,159
Speaker 1: Lincoln's efforts to secure the Thirteenth Amendment. Picking up where

74
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:12,920
Speaker 1: the movie left off, Bochra began researching how the Amendment

75
00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:16,560
Speaker 1: was implemented after the end of the Civil War. That's

76
00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:20,840
Speaker 1: when he discovered that Mississippi's ratification was unofficial in the

77
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:24,720
Speaker 1: eyes of the US government. As an Indian immigrant residing

78
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,760
Speaker 1: in the southern state, Bochra felt compelled to try to

79
00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:33,039
Speaker 1: help resolve the situation. Speaking to reporters, he later explained, quote,

80
00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:36,159
Speaker 1: Mississippi gets a lot of bad press about this type

81
00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:38,360
Speaker 1: of stuff, and I just felt that it is something

82
00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:41,120
Speaker 1: that should be fixed, and I saw every reason that

83
00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:44,000
Speaker 1: could be done. Everyone here would like to put this

84
00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:47,360
Speaker 1: part of Mississippi's past behind us and move on into

85
00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:52,560
Speaker 1: the twenty first century rather than the nineteenth. During his investigation,

86
00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:56,680
Speaker 1: Bochra discussed his findings with Ken Sullivan, a colleague at

87
00:05:56,760 --> 00:06:01,760
Speaker 1: UMC and a lifelong resident of Mississippi. After their conversation,

88
00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:04,920
Speaker 1: Sullivan took his family to see Lincoln and was similarly

89
00:06:04,960 --> 00:06:08,680
Speaker 1: inspired to help correct the state's oversight. He soon got

90
00:06:08,720 --> 00:06:12,839
Speaker 1: in touch with Mississippi's then current Secretary of State, Delbert Hoseman,

91
00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:16,120
Speaker 1: and within a matter of weeks, the necessary paperwork was

92
00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:20,159
Speaker 1: dispatched to Washington. It was a long time coming, but

93
00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:25,480
Speaker 1: on February seventh, twenty thirteen, Mississippi's ratification of the thirteenth

94
00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:30,520
Speaker 1: Amendment was finally complete, one hundred and forty eight years

95
00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:36,800
Speaker 1: behind schedule. I'm Gabe Lousier and hopefully you now know

96
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:40,440
Speaker 1: a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

97
00:06:41,279 --> 00:06:44,159
Speaker 1: You can learn even more about history by following us

98
00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:49,680
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TEDI HC Show. And

99
00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:52,480
Speaker 1: if you have any comments or suggestions, you can always

100
00:06:52,520 --> 00:06:55,240
Speaker 1: send them my way by writing to this Day at

101
00:06:55,279 --> 00:06:59,880
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

102
00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:02,480
Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

103
00:07:02,520 --> 00:07:05,960
Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in History class.