Mississippi chronology Mexican workers are recruited to Lumberton.
Thousands of Mexicans pick cotton in the Mississippi Delta. Priests observe that all plantations in the Clarksdale area have Mexican workers.
Gunnison schools’ board of trustees rules that Mexicans cannot attend Gunnison Consolidated School. Some Mexicans attend a separate Mexican school on the plantation of J.G. McGehee.
Mexican children attending white schools of Cleveland are forced out. Community leader Rafael J. Landrove and the New Orleans Mexican consulate gain readmission of Mexicans in white schools.
Cotton prices crash, which causes Mexicans to repatriate and Mexican Americans to return to Texas at their own expense.
Tejanos and Mexican braceros pick cotton in the Mississippi Delta.
BC Rogers poultry processing plant in Morton tries to recruit Mexican Americans from Texas. Few stay in Mississippi.
BC Rogers begins its Hispanic Project. At its height, the project buses in 80 Mexican, Caribbean, and Central American workers per week from Miami or Texas
The Immigration and Naturalization Service opens an office in Jackson. Before this date, Mississippi was one of seven U.S. states with no INS office.
Mississippi Immigrants’ Rights Alliance (MIRA!) is formed in Jackson.
2001 La Noticia becomes Mississippi’s first major Spanish-language newspaper, quickly circulating more than 2,000 copies in Jackson, Biloxi, Carthage, Kosciusko, and Forest.
2004 The Mississippi Baptist Convention elects its first Latino officer.
2005 Hurricane Katrina strikes Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. In the subsequent year, south Mississippi’s Latino population increases nearly fivefold.
2006 African American and Latino leaders organize pro-immigrant marches in Jackson, Gulfport, and Laurel.
2007 Mississippi state politicians make illegal immigration a top campaign issue.
