Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm) is located in Sunflower County.

The land mass encompassed most of Sunflower and Leflore Counties as we know them today.

This village was located where the north end of Mound Bayou empties into the Sunflower River.

[citation needed] After the U.S. Civil War, across several decades African Americans migrated to Sunflower County to work in the Mississippi Delta.

There was considerable migration out of the rural county, especially as mechanization reduced the need for farm labor.

Many African Americans migrated north or west to industrial cities to escape the social oppression and violence of Jim Crow, especially moving in the Great Migration during and after World War II, when the defense industry on the West Coast attracted many.

As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 25,971 people, 8,322 households, and 5,292 families residing in the county.

Sunflower County has the ninth-lowest per capita income in Mississippi and the 72nd-lowest in the United States.

MDOC operates the Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP; colloquially known as 'Parchman Farm') in the unincorporated community of Parchman in Sunflower County and a probation and parole office in the Courthouse Annex in Indianola.

Therefore, the State of Mississippi originally performed executions of condemned criminals in their counties of conviction.

By the 1950s residents of Sunflower County were still opposed to the concept of housing the execution chamber at MSP.

In September 1954, Governor Hugh White called for a special session of the Mississippi Legislature to discuss the application of the death penalty.

[27] Ruleville-Drew Airport, between Drew and Ruleville,[28] is jointly operated by the two cities.

[27] Mississippi Delta Community College has a main campus in Moorhead and other locations.

[32] The Greenwood Commonwealth said that the county was an "easy target" for school merging due to the difficulties in all three school districts, and that the scenario "doesn't leave them with much leverage to argue in favor of the status quo.

[34] In May 2012 Governor of Mississippi Phil Bryant signed the bill into law, requiring all three districts to consolidate.

[42] The Enterprise-Tocsin, a newspaper based out of Indianola, is distributed throughout Sunflower County.

[44] J. Todd Moye, author of Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945-1986, said "Sunflower County has always been overwhelmingly rural."