This stamp commemorates the 200th anniversary of Mississippi becoming the 20th state, on December 10, 1817. The Mississippi Statehood Forever stamp features a photograph taken by Lou Bopp in 2009. It shows a close-up of a musician’s hands as he plays his guitar. Mississippi is the birthplace of many legendary blues artists, who created a uniquely American genre of music.

First explored for Spain by Hernando de Soto, who discovered the Mississippi River in 1540, the region was later claimed by France. In 1699, a French group under Sieur d'Iberville established the first permanent settlement near present-day Ocean Springs.

Great Britain took over the area in 1763 after the French and Indian War, ceding it to the United States in 1783 after the Revolution. Spain did not relinquish its claims until 1798, and in 1810 the United States annexed West Florida from Spain, including what is now southern Mississippi.

For a little more than one hundred years, from shortly after the state's founding through the Great Depression, cotton was the undisputed king of Mississippi's largely agrarian economy. Over the last half-century, however, Mississippi has diversified its economy by balancing agricultural output with increased industrial activity.