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==History== Haywood County was created from part of [[Madison County, Tennessee|Madison County]] in 1823β24, and was named for Tennessee judge and historian [[John Haywood (judge)|John Haywood]]. The state legislature designated Brownsville as the county seat.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ | title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher=Govt. Print. Off. | author=Gannett, Henry | year=1905 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n152 153]}}</ref> Haywood County was later reduced in size, both in 1835 when a western portion was ceded to help form [[Lauderdale County, Tennessee|Lauderdale County]], and in 1870 when all Haywood County territory north of the [[Forked Deer River]], save one small district, was given to the newly formed [[Crockett County, Tennessee|Crockett County]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=History of Haywood County Tennessee |publisher=Brownsville-Haywood County Historical Society |year=1989 |pages=234β237}}</ref> For much of the county's history, agriculture, primarily [[Cotton production in the United States|cotton production]], was the basis of the local economy, as it was throughout western Tennessee. Before the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], this was accomplished by a [[plantations in the American South|plantation]] system based on the use of [[slavery|enslaved African-American workers]]. After [[Emancipation]] in 1865, many planters hired [[freedmen]] as [[tenant farming|tenant farmers]] and [[sharecropping|sharecroppers]] to produce the still-important cotton crops.<ref>[http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=615 Nunn, Emma. "Haywood County", in ''The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', Version 2.0]</ref> The largely rural county continues to have a majority-black population. Whites lynched three African-Americans in the county, most at the county seat of Brownsville, in the period following Reconstruction and into the early 20th century.<ref name="supp">[http://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf ''Lynching in America/ Supplement: Lynchings by County''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627005306/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf |archive-date=October 9, 2022 |url-status=live |date=June 27, 2018 }}, Equal Justice Initiative, 2015, p. 6</ref> On June 20, 1940, [[Elbert Williams]], an African-American, was murdered in Brownsville for "attempting to qualify to vote" and "an interest in Negro affairs." His body was thrown into the [[Hatchie River]], and was later recovered.<ref name="guzman">[http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text2/lynchingcrime.pdf Jessie P. Guzzman & W. Hardin Hughes, βLynching-Crime,β ''Negro Year Book: A Review of Events Affecting Negro Life, 1944-1946'', 1947; part of National Humanities Center, ''The Making of African American Identity, Vol. III, 1917-1968''; accessed 04 June 2018]</ref> He had organized a local chapter of the [[NAACP]] ([[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]]). He was the last recorded lynching victim in the state.<ref name="enc">[https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/lynching/ Kathy Bennett, "Lynching"], ''Tennessee Encyclopedia'', 2017/updated 2018</ref> Like other southern states, Tennessee had raised voter registration barriers at the turn of the century to [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchise blacks]].
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