In Oktibbeha County, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 ceded Choctaw land to the U.S. government and ushered in white settlement and slavery. Mississippi’s 1869 constitution granted African-American men the right to vote, and from 1869 to 1876 the county’s first African-American officials were elected to the Mississippi Legislature, while from 1870 to 1878 African-American officials were first elected to countywide offices. A new state constitution in 1890 removed African-Americans from political power and participation. From 1895 to 1900, Starkville obtained six acres of land at the site of present-day Henderson School, which remained the site of black education until 1970 and was notably known as the Oktibbeha County Training School. In 1951 Dr. Douglas L. Conner began his medical practice in Starkville, and in the late 1950s Medgar Evers visited him to encourage the founding of a local NAACP branch. In 1963 Mississippi State University’s all-white basketball team broke segregation tradition by playing Loyola of Chicago, a team with African-American players, in the NCAA tournament, and in 1965 Richard Holmes became the first African-American to enroll at Mississippi State University. In 1969 the local NAACP chapter was organized, and more than 1,000 citizens signed a petition in support of school desegregation. In 1970 Starkville public schools were desegregated by court order, and an economic boycott of Main Street merchants and protest marches led to arrests and jailing but resulted in the hiring of African-Americans; anti-demonstration laws passed by Starkville were later thrown out in federal court. In 1974 Starkville native Cool Papa Bell was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame for his Negro Baseball League career. From 1977 to 1979, the first African-Americans since Reconstruction were elected to the Starkville Board of Aldermen, the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors, and the Mississippi House of Representatives. Starkville High School held its first integrated prom in 1987, the Race Relations Team organized the first integrated Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday celebration in 1995, Mississippi State University began hosting an annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration in 1999, and in 2003 the university hired Sylvester Croom as the first African-American head football coach in Southeastern Conference history.