In 1971 Indiana created ten color screenprints for his "Confederacy" portfolio, each reproducing one of Indiana’s paintings from each year of the 1960s. They bear the same titles as the corresponding paintings. The painting selected from 1965 was The Confederacy: Mississippi. Each print shares the same format: two concentric circles, inside of which is text that reads, "Just as in the anatomy of man every nation must have its hind parts," a quote from the artist. Inside the smaller circle is a map with the state whose name is across the bottom of the print. Each state and city represented on the prints were chosen by Indiana to spotlight racial violence occurring there. Mississippi has a map of Mississippi with a star marking the location of Philadelphia,
The artist's inspiration for Mississippi was the 1964 murders of Andrew Goodman, Michael "Mickey" Schwerner, and James Chaney, also known as the Freedom Summer murders, the Mississippi civil rights workers' murders or the Mississippi Burning murders during the Civil Rights Movement. The victims were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register African Americans in Mississippi to vote.
