Editing Carthage, Mississippi (section)

==History==
Carthage was established in 1834, and became the county seat.  The Harris family were early settlers, and named the town after their former home of [[Carthage, Tennessee]].  A courthouse and jail were built in 1836, and a post office was established the following year.  Carthage was incorporated in 1876.  A brick courthouse replaced the previous one in 1877, and was replaced again in 1910.<ref name="city">{{cite web | title = City of Carthage - About | publisher = City of Carthage | url = http://www.cityofcarthage.org/html/about.html | access-date = January 1, 2014}}</ref><ref name="NRHP">{{cite web | title = National Register of Historic Places Registration Form | publisher = Mississippi Department of Archives and History | date = July 25, 2012 | url = http://www.apps.mdah.ms.gov/nom/dist/230.pdf}}</ref> The present courthouse was designed by [[E. L. Malvaney]] and completed in 1939.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.courthouses.co/us-states/m/mississippi/leake-county/ | title=Leake County &#124; US Courthouses }}</ref>  ''The Carthaginian'' newspaper was established in 1872, and remains in publication today.

By 1900, agriculture was the primary industry in Leake County.  The [[Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana)|Pearl River]], located {{convert|2|mi|km|abbr=on}} south of Carthage, was used to ship goods by steamboat to and from [[Jackson, Mississippi|Jackson]], the state capital .  Although a railroad eventually ran through Carthage, it did not play a significant role in the development of the town.  In 1914, the Merrill Brothers Logging Company built a logging railroad from [[Canton, Mississippi|Canton]] to McAfee, passing through Carthage.  The line was taken over in 1927 by the Canton and Carthage Railroad, which then established commercial service to Carthage.  The railroad was abandoned in 1960.<ref name="NRHP"/><ref>{{cite web | last = Howe | first = Tony | title = Canton & Carthage Railroad | publisher = Mississippi Rails | url = http://www.msrailroads.com/Canton_Carthage.htm | access-date = January 1, 2014}}</ref>

In 1927, Jackson's ''Daily Clarion Ledger'' wrote an article entitled "Carthage is a Good Progressive and Enterprising City - Thriving Center of Leake County Holds Modern Benefits".  By then, Carthage had schools, churches, an ice plant, two banks, a Masonic Hall, and a Coca-Cola bottling plant.<ref name="NRHP"/>

The population had surpassed 2,000 by 1964, and the town was reclassified as a city.<ref name="NRHP"/>

Carthage Historic District includes the county courthouse, commercial and residential properties of various architectural styles and is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places listings in Mississippi#Leake County|National Register of Historic Places]].  The [[Carthage Post Office]] and [[Jordan House (Carthage, Mississippi)|Jordan House]] are individually listed.<ref name="NRHP"/>

When [[Carthage, Texas]] established in 1848, it was named after Carthage, Mississippi.<ref>{{cite web | last = LaGrone | first = Leila B. | title = CARTHAGE, TX | publisher = Texas State Historical Association | url = http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hfc03 | access-date = January 1, 2014}}</ref>

===Civil Rights Era===
As early as 1948, Carthage began holding an annual "Tri-Racial Goodwill Festival", in which all citizens were included.  Although the directors of the first festival separated whites, African Americans and Native Americans, this was corrected in subsequent years.  The local newspaper reported that at the 1949 festival, "friendship and goodwill fellowship permeated the air".<ref name=" Stuesse">{{cite book | last =   Stuesse | first = Angela Christine | title = Globalization "Southern Style": Transnational Migration, the Poultry Industry, and Implications for Organizing Workers Across Difference | year = 2008 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qXTcWy4p6tkC&pg=PP1| isbn = 9780549764069 }}</ref>{{rp|68}}

In 1964, a group known as Americans for the Preservation of the White Race initiated a boycott in Carthage against white-owned businesses that were complying with the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964|Civil Rights Act]].<ref>{{cite book | last =  Irons | first = Jenny | title = Reconstituting Whiteness: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission | publisher = Vanderbilt University Press | year = 2010 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0I5mA3Ui6ZQC&pg=PP1| isbn = 9780826516879 }}</ref>  When members of the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] tried to open a [[Freedom Schools|Freedom School]] in Carthage, local whites told them their deed was invalid, and threatened to burn the school.<ref>{{cite book | last = Hogan | first = Wesley C. | title = Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream for a New America | publisher = UNC Press | year = 2007 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=bim4Cjy6LOIC&pg=PA1950| isbn = 9780807867891 }}</ref>  In 1967, shots were fired into the home of an [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People|NAACP]] worker in Carthage.<ref>{{cite book | last = Altschiller | first = Donald | title = Hate Crimes: A Reference Handbook | publisher = ABC-CLIO | year = 2005 | url = https://archive.org/details/hatecrimesrefere0002alts| url-access = registration | isbn = 9781851096244 }}</ref>