The history of Mississippi became the state it is today due to numerous events, government actions, cultural changes, and writers. Indian Act Removal Act, 13th Amendment, and Reverend George Lee played a great impact on the current status of Mississippi. The movements of Indians increased the power of Europeans and decreased the Indian population. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. Reverend George Lee was shot for urging black people to vote. All of these have contributed to Mississippi's history. The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830. The law authorized him to negotiate with Native Americans in the South. Non-Native Americans strongly supported the law. Christian missionaries opposed the law, and future President Abraham Lincoln, future New Jerseyan Theodore Frelinghuysen, and Congressman Davy Crockett spoke out against the legislation. It was later passed by Congress. Due to the Indian Removal Act, the current Native American population is very low. --The Removal Act of 1830, section I, in The American Indian and the United States, A Documentary History, ed. Wilcomb E. Washburn, vol. 3 (New York: Random House, 1973) 2169 "That in the making of one or more such exchanges, it shall and may be lawful for the President to solemnly assure the tribe or nation with whom the exchange is made, that the United States will secure and forever guarantee to them and their heirs or successors the country so exchanged with them and if they prefer, that the United States will cause that a patent or grant be issued and executed to them for the same: provided always, These lands shall revert to the United States, if the Indians disappear or abandon them. » (http://www.columbia.edu/~lmg21/BC3180/removal.html).The...... middle of paper ......ppi. He would have been the first African American to vote in Humphrey County, Mississippi. In 1953, Rev. George Lee and Gus Courts founded the Belzoni branch of the NAACP. He later became vice president of the Regional Black Leadership Council. In 1995, he was shot in the face for urging African Americans to vote. Although an eyewitness saw a car full of white people drive by and shoot at Lee's car, authorities did not charge anyone. Governor Hugh White refused to send investigators to Belzoni, where the murder took place. His death ignited great momentum in the civil rights movement and also showed the flaws in the so-called rights of African Americans in Mississippi. His life also exemplified Booker T. Washington's philosophy that an economic base was the necessary prerequisite for building a movement for political rights..