Editing Troup County, Georgia (section)

===20th century to present===
During the first half of the 20th century, thousands of blacks left Georgia and other southern states in what is known as the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]]. They were seeking work as mechanization reduced the number of farm jobs, and they were seeking more opportunities than in the [[Jim Crow]] South, where they were [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] and socially oppressed.

On September 8, 1940, 16-year-old Austin Callaway, a black youth, was arrested in LaGrange as a suspect in an attack on a white woman. The next night a small, armed group of white men took him from the county jail, driving him out to the nearby countryside, where they [[Lynching of Austin Callaway|lynched]] him: shooting him several times and leaving him for dead. In 2017 a man who was a child at the time revealed that his white family found and took Callaway to the hospital, where he died the next day. They had kept their role secret out of fear of the [[KKK]].<ref name="family"/> Callaway was noted by the local paper as dying from gunshot wounds; the ''[[New York Times]]'' at the time described it as a lynching.<ref name="nytimes"/> As was typical in these cases, no one was prosecuted for the murder. In response, that fall African Americans organized the first [[NAACP]] chapter in Troup County at Warren Temple Methodist Church in LaGrange. It has worked on a variety of civil rights issues, including voting rights, equal justice, access, and human services.<ref name="warren"/>

In 1947, prosperous farmer Henry "Peg" Gilbert, a married African-American father who owned and farmed 100 acres in the county, was arrested and charged with harboring a fugitive by officials from neighboring [[Harris County, Georgia]], in the case of Gus Davidson. Also African American, the latter man was charged in the shooting death of a white farmer. Four days later Gilbert was dead, shot while held in jail by the Harris County Sheriff, in what he said was self-defense. In 2016 the [[Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project]] of [[Northeastern University]] reported on this [[death in custody]]. They found that Gilbert had been beaten severely before his death, and shot five times. They asserted he had been detained and killed because of his success as a farmer.<ref name="CRRJ_Georgia_1947">{{citation |title=CRRJ Provides First Full Account of Notorious 1947 Georgia Jailhouse Killing |url=http://www.northeastern.edu/law/news/announcements/2016/crrj-gilbert-8.22.html |publisher=Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project |date=August 22, 2016 |access-date=August 25, 2016}}</ref><ref name="CRRJ_report_2016_Gilbert">{{cite report |url=http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/georgia/henry-gilbert/#_ga=1.96031967.2139854245.1472158027 |title=Henry Gilbert |first1=Tara |last1=Dunn |first2=Ariel Goeun Lee |last2=Kong |publisher=Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project |date=2016 |access-date=August 25, 2016 |work=Northeastern University School of Law |location=Boston, MA |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826013429/http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/georgia/henry-gilbert/#_ga=1.96031967.2139854245.1472158027 |archive-date=August 26, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

By 1960, the county was recorded in the US Census as having 31,418 whites and 15,760 "Negroes" (now classified as black or African Americans). Following passage of the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], blacks gradually regained the ability to vote and take part in the political process.

Textile manufacturing was a major part of the economy until the late 20th century, when textile manufacturing moved offshore to areas with cheaper labor. The county has acquired other industry, notably auto parts manufacturers who support the nearby [[Kia Motors]] plant. Also in the area are [[West Point Lake]] and [[Callaway Gardens]], which attract tourists and visitors as top recreation destinations in the state.<ref name="family">[https://www.myajc.com/news/family-reveals-year-old-secret-georgia-lynching/vH0uCAwkC4dKqEAnATj2II/ Brad Schrade, "Family reveals 76-year-old secret in Georgia lynching"], ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'', March 16, 2017; accessed March 26, 2018</ref>

As of 2015, the official historian of Troup County is writer Forrest Clark Johnson, III, who has published several books on the county and region's history. He is a retired teacher in the county's school system.

On January 25, 2017, Mayor Jim Thornton and Police Chief Louis M. Dekmar, of the county seat of LaGrange, publicly apologized to more than 200 people gathered for a reconciliation service at Warren Temple United Methodist Church for the police's failure decades before to protect Callaway, saying:

<blockquote>"I sincerely regret and denounce the role our Police Department played in Austin's lynching, both through our action and our inaction," Chief Dekmar told a crowd at a traditionally African-American church. "And for that, I'm profoundly sorry. It should never have happened."<ref name="nytimes">[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/us/lagrange-georgia-lynching-apology.html "Nearly 8 Decades Later, an Apology for a Lynching in Georgia"], ''New York Times,'' 27 January 2017; accessed 27 January 2017</ref></blockquote>

Residents organized Troup Together, a grassroots group to acknowledge lynchings, commemorate the victims, and work on racial reconciliation. On March 18, 2017, black and white residents of the county gathered to dedicate a historic marker at Warren Temple Church "memorializing Callaway's lynching and three others documented in the area: Willis Hodnett in 1884; Samuel Owensby in 1913 and Henry Gilbert, a Troup County resident who was lynched in neighboring [[Harris County, Georgia|Harris County]] in 1947."<ref name="family"/> Another ceremony was held at Southview Cemetery in LaGrange, where these names were read.<ref name="warren">[https://trouptogether.wordpress.com/what-happened-at-warren-temple/ "What Happened at Warren Temple?"], Troup Together blog and website; accessed March 26, 2018</ref>

On April 7, 2017, Troup County's computer systems were the victim of a ransomware attack; it caused all county computer systems to be inaccessible. This included the sheriff's office and district attorney's office.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lagrangenews.com/2017/04/07/county-computer-system-allegedly-hacked/|title=County computer system allegedly hacked {{!}} LaGrange Daily News|website=www.lagrangenews.com|access-date=March 22, 2018}}</ref> After five days, the county was still working to get 400 computer systems back online.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://wrbl.com/2017/04/12/troup-county-says-hackers-demanded-ransom-in-server-breach/|title=Troup County says hackers demanded ransom in server breach|last=Singleton|first=Mikhaela|date=April 12, 2017|work=WRBL|access-date=March 22, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref>