1. In 1870, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union following the Reconstruction Period after the American Civil War. The state had seceded from the Union in 1861 and was one of the Confederate States of America.

2. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was formed on May 25, 1964, as a challenge to the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party. The MFDP was composed of African Americans and white allies who were excluded from participating in the state's Democratic primaries due to voter suppression and racial discrimination.

3. On May 25, 1970, Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, became the site of a deadly shooting by police during a student protest against the Vietnam War and racial injustice. Two students were killed and twelve were injured.

4. Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer was born on May 25, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. Hamer was a powerful voice in the fight for voting rights for African Americans and was a co-founder of the MFDP.

5. On May 25, 2011, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour granted clemency to the "Scottsboro Boys," nine black teenagers who had been wrongfully convicted of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. The Scottsboro Boys' case became a symbol of racial injustice and helped to galvanize the civil rights movement.