Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson is the capital of the state of Mississippi. It takes its name from the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Founded in 1821, Jackson was captured and torched by General William Tecumseh Sherman and his Union troops more than once during the Civil War. The city was also the site of a number of milestone moments in the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. Today, Jackson is a major center for the railroad, shipping, and manufacturing industries in Mississippi, as well as the home of many of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

Landscape

Jackson is located slightly to the southwest of the center of Mississippi, and occupies a total land area of approximately 104 square miles. The city is situated on the western bank of the Pearl River; about twenty miles northeast of Jackson, the river opens up into the Ross Barnett Reservoir. The reservoir provides the city with its water supply, as well as a source of flood control. Among other factors, Jackson’s proximity to a navigable body of water made it an ideal location when state officials were deciding on a new site for the Mississippi capital.

The original city layout of Jackson was planned according to Thomas Jefferson’s notion of a “checkerboard” design, in which every other square of land was strictly reserved for a park or other green public space. The Jefferson plan ensured that every city block containing residential or business buildings was surrounded by open, natural areas. Although Jackson’s growth over the years has altered this strict checkerboard layout, traces of the original plan remain, and the current downtown area—though busy—is markedly free from pollution and congestion.

The climate in Jackson is generally warm and mild, with temperatures that are comfortable throughout most of the year, but that shift slightly with the coming of fall, winter and spring. Summers in Jackson, as in much of the American South, are hot and humid, with daytime highs routinely reaching the upper nineties. Occasionally, low-lying areas in Jackson experience flooding from the Pearl River and other small waterways, especially during hurricanes.

People

For decades after its founding in 1821, Jackson was little more than a tiny frontier village. The city’s population grew relatively slowly, and did not rise above ten thousand residents until the early twentieth century. During the 1930s, the discovery of fields of natural gas in the areas surrounding the city spurred its economic development and attracted new residents in droves.

In 2022, according to the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Jackson was home to 145,995 inhabitants. Jackson’s residents are predominantly Black or African American (82.2 percent), and another 14.7 percent are White. Approximately 1.7 percent of the city’s population is Hispanic or Latino, with Asian Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiian, and persons of other races comprising much smaller minorities. Although it is still relatively small, Jackson’s immigrant population, like those of other Mississippi cities, is rapidly growing.

The city of Jackson proper has seen a steady downward trend in its population over the past several years, with many of its residents moving out of the city center in order to relocate to its expanding suburbs. The cities of Pearl, Madison, and Ridgeland are among the Jackson-area suburbs that are experiencing a boom in the construction of roads, retail outlets, and residences.

The Farish Street Heritage Festival, held each September, is a large and lively commemoration of the culture of Jackson’s historic African American community. The city’s increasingly diverse population is also reflected in numerous other cultural events throughout the year, including the annual Festival Latino and a St. Patrick’s Day parade, the riotous celebrations of which attract revelers far beyond Jackson’s small Irish community.

Economy

Because of Jackson’s prime central location within the Southern states—it is situated equidistant from Dallas, and Atlanta, to the west and east, and from Memphis and New Orleans to the north and south—it has long served as an important hub for the distribution and transportation of goods within the region. The city’s efficient air and rail transportation networks help to facilitate this industry: major air carriers fly out of the Jackson-Evers International Airport, including American Airlines, British Airways, Delta, and United. The city is also served by the Illinois Central Railroad (operated by the Canadian National Railway) and the Kansas City Southern Railway.

Another major sector of Jackson’s economy is automotive-parts manufacturing. This industry became particularly important to the city in 2000, when car manufacturer Nissan elected to construct a vast assembly plant just north of Jackson. The plant employed about 5,000 workers as 2022, and was planning to begin a $500 million expansion project. Telecommunications, meat processing, and the state government are other significant drivers of the city’s economy.

Landmarks

The Eudora Welty House and Museum, located in the historic district of Belhaven, is one of Jackson’s most prized attractions. Welty, a popular writer and photographer, is perhaps the city’s best-known resident. The Welty house was constructed in 1925, and has a sprawling landscaped garden about three-quarters of an acre in size. Visitors can view the house in its original condition, with the furniture, books, and art just as they were when Welty and her family lived there.

The modest home of civil rights leader Medgar Evers has also been preserved as a historic building, with one room dedicated to a permanent exhibition of artifacts relating to Evers’s life. Architecturally quite simple, the house does have one unique feature: it has no front door. Aware of the risks that he faced because of his position as a prominent activist, the Evers family decided to have the only entrance to the home be located next to the garage.

Other historic sites in Jackson include the Manship House (Civil War Mayor Charles Henry Manship’s home), Oaks House (General Sherman’s residence during the Civil War), and the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion. The latter is a huge mid-nineteenth-century residence built in the Greek Revival style and filled with antique furniture and finishings. The mansion has been occupied by the state governor and family since 1842, and was among only a handful of public buildings that were spared torching by Union troops during the Civil War.

Many of Jackson’s attractions reflect the city’s strong African American heritage. Among these are the Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center, a museum showcasing artifacts that depict the experience of black Mississippians throughout history; the Queen of Hearts restaurant and club, an authentic venue for blues music since the 1970s; and the campus of Tougaloo College, a historically black college that has educated prominent African Americans since 1869. In December 2017, a new museum, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, opened after construction on the facility had begun in 2013 following years of fundraising. At the same time, the reconstituted Museum of Mississippi History, which had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, was opened in the same building complex.

Jackson is also the home of many of the state’s largest museums, including the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Mississippi Museum of Natural History, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, and the International Museum of Muslim Cultures.

History

Before the city of Jackson was founded, the site on which it now stands was home to a small trading post known as Le Fleur’s Bluff (the post was named after a French-Canadian trader). In 1821, Mississippi legislators were taken by Le Fleur’s Bluff when they were charged with the task of choosing a new location for the state capital that was more centrally placed than the previous site, Natchez. Noting its excellent soil, good supply of timber, and proximity to the Pearl River, the legislators settled on the site. They gave it its new name—in honor of Major General Andrew Jackson, who would later become the president of the United States—and soon constructed a statehouse at the corner of Capitol Street and President Street.

Jackson remained a small, sparsely populated town for many years, and since it was neither the largest nor the wealthiest city in Mississippi, the suggestion was often made to replace it as the state capital. In 1832, a constitutional mandate finally guaranteed its status. Jackson suffered a further series of indignities during the Civil War, when it was three times attacked, captured, and burned by Union soldiers. As a result of these fires, Jackson temporarily earned the dubious nickname “Chimneyville.”

Corruption plagued Jackson’s government in the post-war period, but the city began to see a real acceleration in development when new railroads were constructed in the late nineteenth century. This, together with the natural gas field discovered nearby in the 1930s, helped to boost the growth of Jackson’s population and businesses.

In the mid-twentieth century, Jackson played a pivotal role—both positive and negative—in the civil rights movement that was sweeping the nation. Among the most notable of the scenes played out on Jackson’s stage was the arrest by local police of a group of Freedom Riders who attempted to use the whites-only restroom facilities at a downtown Greyhound bus terminal in 1961. Deeply segregated though it was, the city was also the site of many impassioned civil rights demonstrations and sit-ins, including incidents such as an attempt by Lane College students to protest the whites-only policy at the Woolworth lunch counter. The city was also the site of the 15,000 person–strong rally that ended the 1966 James Meredith March.

Today, Jackson is a busy metropolitan district whose character is enlivened by cultural events such as arts exhibits at the Mississippi Arts Pavilion, performances by the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra and the Mississippi Opera, and the Mississippi State Fair in October.

Bibliography

Ballard, Michael B. The Civil War in Mississippi: Major Campaigns and Battles. Mississippi Historical Society, 2011.

Busbee, Westley F. Mississippi: A History. Wiley, 2015.

Cotter, Holland. “The New Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Refuses to Sugarcoat History.” The New York Times, 18 Dec. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/arts/design/jackson-mississippi-civil-rights-museum-medgar-evers.html. Accessed 23 Feb. 2024.

Dement, Polly. Mississippi Entrepreneurs. UP of Mississippi, 2014.

Knox, Nell Linton. Studio Jackson: Creative Culture in the Mississippi Capital. History, 2014.

Marshall, James P. Student Activism and Civil Rights in Mississippi: Protest Politics and the Struggle for Racial Justice, 1960–1965. Louisiana State UP, 2013.

Miller, Mary Carol. Lost Landmarks of Mississippi. UP of Mississippi, 2002.

“QuickFacts: Jackson (City), Mississippi.” US Census Bureau, www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jacksoncitymississippi/. Accessed 23 Feb. 2024.

Smith, Timothy B. “Jackson: The Capital City and the Civil War.” Mississippi History Now, April 2010, mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/337/jackson-the-capital-city-and-the-civil-war. Accessed 23 Feb. 2024.