Editing Amite County, Mississippi (section)

===20th century to present===
Racial violence, including [[lynchings]], escalated during the [[Jim Crow]] years.<ref name="MSproj">[http://mscivilrightsproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=988&Itemid=3043 "Amite County"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141026095618/http://mscivilrightsproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=988&Itemid=3043 |date=October 26, 2014 }}, Mississippi Civil Rights Project. Retrieved March 16, 2014</ref> The county had 14 documented lynchings in the period from 1877 to 1950; most took place around the turn of the century when disenfranchisement and imposition of Jim Crow was underway.<ref name="eji">[https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf ''Lynching in America'', 2nd edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627005306/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf |date=June 27, 2018 }}, Supplement by County, p. 4</ref>

Blacks were excluded from the political process in the county and state until the late 1960s. African Americans were a majority in the state until the 1930s but excluded from voting, they were also excluded from juries and the entire political system.

The county continued to be based on agriculture, with cotton the basis of the economy into the 1930s. A [[boll weevil]] invasion damaged many cotton crops. Planters shifted to logging and dairy farming in the 1930s, during the Great Depression.

As agriculture was mechanized, reducing the need for farm labor, many blacks left Amite County during the first half of the 20th century in two waves of the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]]. In the first wave, before World War II, many moved north to Chicago and other industrial cities of the Midwest. In the second wave, they moved to the West Coast, where the burgeoning defense industry created jobs before, during, and after the war. From 1940 to 1960, the county population declined by 29%, as can be seen on the census tables below. Some rural whites also left the county for industrialized cities.

In the 1950s, local farmer E.W. Steptoe founded a chapter of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] ([[NAACP]]) in the county. [[Herbert Lee (activist)|Herbert Lee]], a married farmer with nine children, was among its charter members. They were working to regain constitutional civil rights, including the ability to vote. In the summer of 1961, [[Bob Moses (activist)|Bob Moses]] from the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] worked in the county to organize African Americans for voter registration. He was beaten by Bill Caston, a cousin to the sheriff, near the county courthouse, and arrested. He was told to leave the county for his own safety.<ref name="murder">[http://mscivilrightsproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26:the-murder-of-herbert-lee-and-louis-allen&catid=28:event&Itemid=8 "Murder of Herbert Lee and Louis Allen"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140313231944/http://mscivilrightsproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26:the-murder-of-herbert-lee-and-louis-allen&catid=28:event&Itemid=8 |date=March 13, 2014 }}, Amite County, Mississippi Civil Rights Project. Retrieved March 16, 2014.</ref> In the 1960s, only one African American of the total of 5,500 in Amite County was a registered voter. Even after the [[Voting Rights Act]] was passed in 1965, extensive grassroots efforts were required to register eligible voters.<ref name="MSproj"/>

Racial violence against blacks in the county escalated during the years of the [[Civil Rights Movement]]. On September 25, 1961, at the Westbrook Cotton Gin, about a dozen witnesses, both white and black, saw [[E.H. Hurst]], a white state legislator, murder Herbert Lee in broad daylight. At the inquest that day, Hurst claimed self-defense and witnesses, intimidated by the armed white men in the courtroom, supported him. Learning that the federal government might hold a grand jury in the case, [[Louis Allen]], an African-American veteran of World War II and witness to Lee's murder, talked to the FBI to try to gain protection if he were to testify truthfully to what he saw. They said they could not help him. Whites suspected he had talked with the FBI and began to harass him.<ref name="MSproj"/>

Allen's business was boycotted by whites, and the veteran was beaten and arrested more than once by the county sheriff. He stayed in the area to help his aging parents, but planned to leave. On January 31, 1964, he was shot and killed on his land. No one was ever prosecuted for Allen's death. Investigations since 1994 suggest that Allen was killed by Daniel (Danny) Jones, the county sheriff and son of the [[Ku Klux Klan]]'s leader in the county.<ref name="cbs60">[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cold-case-the-murder-of-louis-allen-15-04-2011/ Cold case: "The murder of Louis Allen"], ''60&nbsp;Minutes'' (CBS), April 10, 2011</ref> Danny Jones was featured as a likely perpetrator in the Allen case in a 2011 episode of ''60 Minutes'' focusing on civil rights cold cases, but he denied an interview. He died in 2013.<ref name="EJ1">[https://enterprise-journal.newspapers.com/article/enterprise-journal-obituary-for-daniel-b/59141239/ Obituary for Daniel Bryant Jones, 1930-2013 (Aged 83)] ''Enterprise-Journal'', July 28, 2013</ref>

Following the repression of the civil rights era and a continuing poor economy, younger African Americans continued to leave the county, seeking jobs in bigger cities. The population declined more than 11 percent from 1960 to 1970, and further declines occurred to 1980 (see census tables below.) Because of the murders of Lee and Allen, voter registration efforts had stopped in the early 1960s. African Americans did not register until after passage of the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], which provided federal protection and oversight. Today the county is majority white in population.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

On October 20, 1977, a rental plane carrying members of the band [[Lynyrd Skynyrd]] from [[Greenville, South Carolina]], to [[Louisiana State University|LSU]] in [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]], was low on fuel and [[Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash|crashed in a swamp]] in Amite County.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/LynyrdSkynyrd-N55VM.htm|title=Lynyrd Skynyrd's Crash|website=Check-six.com|access-date=November 12, 2023}}</ref>

Noted historic sites listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] include the Amite County Courthouse and the Westbrook Cotton Gin, the only one surviving of seven in the county. In addition, 19th-century plantation houses and the [[Liberty Presbyterian Church|Liberty]] and [[Bethany Presbyterian Church|Bethany Presbyterian]] churches are listed on the Register.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}