We the People State of Mississippi": Letter Writing, Archiving, and Democracy from Reconstruction to Today

Abstract: This essay analyzes freedpeople's political correspondence to Mississippi's governors during the Civil War and Reconstruction to offer one model for contemporary political engagement—and the importance of its archival preservation—during the Trump administration. Throughout Reconstruction, Black Mississippians wrote directly to their state executives, sharing their fears and frustrations, their hopes and dreams, for the first time. Through this correspondence, they embraced, expanded, and defended their fragile citizenship and, in the process, created an archive that underscores important connections among political correspondence, citizenship, censorship, and government accountability during Reconstruction and today.