Editing Tate County, Mississippi (section)

==History==

As it was developed for cotton culture in the antebellum years, planters in the county depended on the labor of African American slaves. Blacks comprised a majority of the population for many decades. After Reconstruction, whites sometimes enforced their dominance through political intimidation or violence against blacks.

In 1932, a deputy sheriff and son of County Sheriff C.A. Williams, was allegedly shot by a black man, Jesse Williams. Sheriff Williams illegally organized a posse and murdered at least five and possibly as many as seven black people, family members of a man known as "Judge" Crawford.<!-- why? --> A month later Jesse Williams was caught, "tried" and lynched by hanging. No charges were ever considered against the sheriff or lynch mob.<ref name="Crawford family">{{cite web|title=Entire Black Family Murdered In Unsuccessful Manhunt (1932)|url=http://www.thiscruelwar.com/entire-black-family-murdered-unsuccessful-manhunt/|access-date=December 16, 2017 |url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190604014451/http://www.thiscruelwar.com/entire-black-family-murdered-unsuccessful-manhunt/ |archive-date=June 4, 2019}}</ref>