1974: State submits plan to desegregate universities
1974: Trent Lott becomes first Republican reelected to Congress from Mississippi since Reconstruction
September 1974: Atomic Energy Commission permits Mississippi Power and Light to build two nuclear reactors
Each reactor had a generating capacity of 1,250,000 kilowatts. The total cost was estimated at $1.2 billion, making it the largest construction project ever in Mississippi. The first reactor was scheduled for completion in 1979 and the second in 1981. The plant would be built at Grand Gulf, an almost extinct town just outside of Port Gibson in Claiborne County. However, due to the energy crisis from the oil embargo with the Middle East, the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and the controversy over the time and money spent completing the first reactor, the second reactor was never completed.