Editing Fayette, Mississippi (section)

==History==
In 1879, the [[Jesse James]] gang, based in Missouri, raided southwest Mississippi, robbing a store each in [[Washington, Mississippi|Washington]] and Fayette. The outlaws absconded with $2,000 cash in the second robbery and took shelter in abandoned cabins on the Kemp Plantation south of [[St. Joseph, Louisiana|St. Joseph]], [[Louisiana]]. A posse attacked and killed two of the outlaws but failed to capture the entire gang.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/madison/bios/snyderjb.txt|title=Jefferson B. Snyder|publisher=[[New Orleans Times-Picayune]], April 15, 1938|access-date=July 22, 2013}}</ref> Jesse James and most of his gang succeeded in returning to Missouri. He was killed three years later in 1882 at his home in [[St. Joseph, Missouri]].

In 1890, the white Democrat-controlled Mississippi legislature passed a new constitution, which effectively disenfranchised most black people in the state,<ref>{{Cite web|title=November 1, 1890: Mississippi Constitution|url=https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/mississippi-constitution/|access-date=2020-07-23|website=Zinn Education Project|language=en-US}}</ref> crippling their integration into society and the Republican Party of the time.

After Congressional passage of the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], black people began to register and vote again. [[Charles Evers]] was elected as mayor in 1969 by the people of Fayette; he was the first African-American mayor elected in post-Reconstruction Mississippi.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Evers, Charles – MS Civil Rights Project|url=https://mscivilrightsproject.org/newton/person-newton/charles-evers/|access-date=2020-07-23|language=en-US}}</ref> He beat the white incumbent R.G. Allen, 386 votes –225 votes. Evers was an activist and the brother of slain civil rights leader [[Medgar Evers]], head of the Mississippi chapter of the [[NAACP]] when he was assassinated in 1963.<ref>{{cite news|last=Associated Press|title=Race Won By Evers|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xOVZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pEoNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4206,4268816&dq=charles+evers+mayor+wins&hl=en|access-date=25 November 2012|newspaper=Waycross Journal-Herald|date=May 14, 1969}}</ref>