Steven Spielberg Frees the Slaves

 

The 13th Amendment was adopted by the U.S. in 1865.

Mississippi, like several other states whose delegations opposed the measure at the time -- New Jersey and Kentucky included – eventually voted to ratify the amendment.  

Only 130 years behind the rest of the country, the Mississippi legislature officially passed the amendment outlawing slavery in 1995.

Dr. Ranjan Batra, an associate professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, got interested in the issue after watching the Steven Spielberg movie "Lincoln." He, along with another UMC colleague, discovered that the state did not officially notify the U.S. archivist in 1995 as required.  Without that crucial notification, the ratification never officially took place.

They notified the Mississippi Secretary of State, who sent the required letter, and got this one back:

 

So now it is official, and all those imaginary slaves down in Mississippi are singing “Free at last, free at last.  Thank Steven Spielberg, I’m free at last.”

I couldn’t make this stuff up.  Here’s the story from the Jacksonville, MS Clarion-Ledger.