1. On August 26, 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago, was brutally lynched in Money, Mississippi, after being accused of flirting with a white woman. Till's death sparked national outrage and helped to galvanize the civil rights movement.

2. On August 26, 1939, Governor Hugh White signed a bill establishing the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a secret organization that gathered information on civil rights activists and helped to maintain segregation in the state.

3. On August 26, 1862, Confederate forces under General Earl Van Dorn attacked Union troops at the Battle of Davis Bridge, near Pocahontas, Mississippi. Although the Confederates were initially successful, they were ultimately forced to withdraw, making the battle a Union victory.

4. On August 26, 1961, Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist and leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, delivered her famous "I'm Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired" speech at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.

5. On August 26, 1920, women in Mississippi were granted the right to vote when the state ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying the right to vote based on sex. However, many women of color in Mississippi continued to be disenfranchised through discriminatory practices such as poll taxes and literacy tests.