Mississippi Celebrates its 207th Birthday: Writer Willie Morris Reflected Once That The Special Quality of the Land "Indelibly Shapes the Human Beings Who Dwell Upon It"

The calendar has turned again on Mississippi. Its 207th anniversary as a state was recently acknowledged by the Census Bureau.

Mississippi was established on Dec. 10, 1817, as the nation's 20th commonwealth.

How is the state faring after all these birthdays? Wear and tear is beginning to show on its bodies, minds and institutions--the natural progression of life. Mississippi's roads and bridges--and the welcome centers at our borders-- are in a poor state of condition due to an alarming lack of maintenance through the years. It's also totally inexcusable for the major Interstate 20 welcome center east of Meridian to ever close for a period of several weeks, as was the case lately, disappointing thousands of travelers.

A deficiency of maintenance begins at the local level and advances to the gubernatorial and legislative stages, where lawmakers simply aren't willing to spend the amounts necessary to keep the state's infrastructure updated.

They talk more about cutting taxes and budgets than meeting the state's plenitude of needs. In the 2025 Legislature that has begun, watch how much time is exhausted fighting over tax cuts and how little debate there is over MEETING a long list of the state's needs, including infrastructure and improved healthcare for vulnerable citizens.

Gov. Tate Reeves gets kudos for helping to bring more industry to the state, particularly in the northern, central and coastal regions. However, Southwest Mississippi and the Mississippi Delta regions are desperate over their economic situations. Lord, please help them if the state won't.

DeSoto County has done the best job attracting business and industry, although certainly Madison County deserves plaudits for the Amazon data center project and others.

We remain proud of the Huntington Ingalls shipbuilding development at Pascagoula. The company with more than 11,000 employees is our largest private employer and the Navy's leading provider of surface combatants for the nation's defense. Thank you, shipyard workers. Our state's secondary public school system has made great strides in recent times, but the talk of school vouchers is disturbing. That's subsidizing private schools. We have excellent universities for such a poor state. State government has been riddled by corruption at intervals in our history, keeping auditors busy. Mississippi's varied artists are better than those in other states and that's a fact.

The streets in most of our municipalities are among the worst in America. Our citizens sadly and unceasingly litter them, but volunteers gleefully join in to pick it up.

The state has some of the best restaurants in the country. Doe's in Greenville still cooks great steaks and Jackson's renowned Mayflower thankfully is open again. Amerigo's, Crechale's, Brent's Drugs, Bravo, Hal & Mal's, CS' and Walker's are also excellent for food diversity.

Metro Jackson is humming with new downtown and suburban hospitality developments. Out in the state, Lillo's and Vito's in Leland, Gibbes and Sons in Learned, Old Country Store in Lorman, Zip's in Magee, Chatterbox in Byhalia, Vine Brothers in Centreville, Taylor Grocery and Boure' in Oxford, Crescent City Grill in Hattiesburg, Marshall Steakhouse in Holly Springs, Mallard at Dixie Springs near Summit and Weidmann's in Meridian, among dozens more, are favorite food and beverage venues. Please support your local eateries.

Washington lawyer Jack Coleman is returning to Rosedale with a similar development and Luke Chamblee is planning one in nearby Cleveland. Both projects will move the Delta forward. Coleman's honors local moonshiner Perry Martin, whose product was renowned along the Mississippi River.

The late and great Mississippi writer Willie Morris began with the land in his 2000 book, "My Mississippi." Accompanying his son David's photographs, Willie wrote: "It was in its prehistory implacable, brooding, and unyielding, and most of it remains so to this day ... I believe that the special quality of the land itself indelibly shapes the human beings who dwell upon it." Mississippi's 2,961,379 people on its recent birthday are among the most generous anywhere, and churches inhabit vast acreages inside the state's borders, yet many citizens remain afflicted by the plague of separation that has forever haunted the place.

Morris asked, "How to explain at the new millennium this most catastrophic of divides?"

For an explanation, he quoted his friend the renowned historian Patti Carr Black: "We have a deep sense of place, but no sense of 'we're in this together, let's make life better for everyone.' For most of Mississippi's existence, our focus has been on keeping ourselves apart from each other... We've not comprehended that we sink or swim together," she wrote. That's something Mississippi must keep working on as we look to birthday number 208.

---Mac Gordon is a native of McComb. He is a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.