Editing Wilkinson County, Mississippi (section)

==History==
[[File:WOODVILLE REPUBLICAN bw sign.jpg|thumb|222x222px|Wilkinson County's ''[[Woodville Republican]]'', begun in 1823, is (as of 2012) the oldest newspaper and the oldest business in continuous operation in Mississippi. The sign, facing Depot Street, is on the exterior west wall of the newspaper offices in [[Woodville, Mississippi|Woodville]].|left]]

After [[Indian Removal]] in the 19th century, European-American settlers rapidly developed [[cotton]] [[Plantations in the American South|plantations]] along the [[Mississippi River]], which forms the western border. The intensive cultivation depended on the labor of numerous [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved African Americans]]; in the early 19th century, more than a million slaves were relocated to the Deep South from the [[Upper South]] in a major [[forced migration]]. The population of this county quickly became majority [[African American|black]] as enslaved workers were brought in to develop plantations. Much of the bottomlands and interior were undeveloped frontier until after the [[American Civil War]].

The [[West Feliciana Railroad]] was later built to help get the cotton [[commodity crop]] to market. Some planters got wealthy during the [[antebellum era|antebellum years]] and built fine [[mansion]]s in the [[county seat]] of [[Woodville, Mississippi]]. Jane and Samuel Emory Davis moved here in 1812 with their several children, and lived at a plantation near Woodville. Their youngest son, [[Jefferson Davis]], attended the Wilkinson Academy in Woodville for two years before going to Kentucky to another school.<ref>Strode, Hudson (1955). ''Jefferson Davis, Volume I: American Patriot''. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, pp. 11-27</ref>

After the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], [[freedmen]] and [[Planter (American South)|planters]] negotiated new working arrangements. [[Sharecropping]] became widespread. Although cotton continued as the commodity crop, a long agricultural depression kept prices low.

Following Reconstruction, white violence against blacks increased through the later decades of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. According to 2017 data compiled in ''Lynching in America'' (2015-2017), some nine [[Lynching in the United States|lynchings of African Americans]] were recorded in Wilkinson County.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf |title=''Lynching in America'', Supplement: Lynching by County, 3rd edition, 2017, p.7; accessed 07 June 2018 |access-date=June 7, 2018 |archive-date=October 23, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023063004/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The peak of population in the county was reached in 1900, after which many blacks left in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] to the North and Midwest. The county has continued to have a black majority population.

In the early 20th century the [[boll weevil]] infestation destroyed much of the cotton crops, and mechanization caused a further loss of agricultural jobs. The exit of many African Americans from the state did not change the state's exclusion of African Americans from politics. They were not enabled to vote until after passage of the federal [[Voting Rights Act]] in 1965 and its enforcement. Cotton cultivation was revived, but it is produced on a highly mechanized, industrial scale.

Southwest Mississippi was an area of continuing white violence against blacks during the [[Civil Rights Movement]]. In February 1964, the White Knights of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] officially formed. Clifton Walker, 37, a married father of five and employee of International Paper Company in Natchez, who was not politically active, was killed in an ambush on Poor House Road near his home. The evidence showed there had been a crowd of shooters on both sides of the road.<ref>[http://www.hannapub.com/concordiasentinel/frank_morris_murder/cold-case-ambush-on-poor-house-road-the-murder-of/article_5e19f828-472c-11e3-a484-0019bb30f31a.html Frank Morris, "Cold Case: Ambush on Poor House Road: The 1964 murder of Clifton Walker"], ''Concordia Sentinel'', July 22, 2012; accessed June 7, 2018</ref> This lynching cold case has never been solved, although it was among numerous ones that the [[FBI]] was investigating since 2007, before the Donald Trump administration ended the effort in 2018.

Timber has been harvested and processed in the county as a new commodity crop. The population of the rural county has continued to decline because of lack of jobs. It is still majority African American. Towns have started to develop [[heritage tourism]] to attract more visitors.