The state of Mississippi has abolished slavery.

Sounds like old news, right? Well, apparently not. On February 7, 2013, Mississippi finally ratified the 13th Amendment. That’s right, only 148 years after all the other states.

Not that Mississippi was still harboring slavery, but due to a filing error, the signed documents never reached the U.S. Archivist, so it never became official.

The mistake was noticed by Mississippian Dr. Ranjan Batram, who, after seeing Steven Spielberg’s movie “Lincoln,” was curious about the state’s slave history. He began to research when Mississippi ratified the 13th Amendment and found out they never did.

It turns out Lincoln did not officially free the slaves in Mississippi; rather, it was a joint collaboration between Spielberg and Batram. Now, how’s that for a movie?

The Gauntlet’s initial reaction was, “really?” We found it surprising that something this importantly was overlooked, as many Americans died for that law to pass.

We were surprised that this information even made the news; it should have been swept under the rug. It is not only an embarrassment to Mississippi, but also to America.
Indeed, the fact that there was no address from the President or the state of Mississippi means that officials tried to resolve the issue without media attention, and they were successful to some extent. But nothing can escape the Internet’s attention.

Mississippi resolved the issue before the mainstream media could make note of it; the date on most of the articles on the online news was Feb 18, while Mississippi resolved the issue back on the seventh.

While we were astonished that this issue occurred, we were also pleased that it was resolved. Finally.