Editing Harrison County, Texas (section)

===Reconstruction era to present===
Following defeat at the end of the American Civil War, the county was part of an area occupied by Federal troops under [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]]. The white minority in the county bitterly resented federal authority and the constitutional amendment granting the franchise to [[freedmen]]. A majority in the county, the freedmen elected a bi-racial county government dominated by [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] officeholders.

Republican dominance in local offices continued in the county until 1880, but the conservative whites of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] regained control of the state government before the official end of Reconstruction. In 1880, the [[White Citizens Parties|Citizen's Party]] of Harrison County, amid charges of fraud and coercion, gained control of elected positions in the county government after winning on a technicality, which involved hiding a key ballot box.<ref name="campbell"/> They retained such control of the county into the 1950s, aided by the state's [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchisement of Blacks]] at the turn of the century by a variety of laws, including those to permit [[white primaries]].<ref>Williams, Patrick G. “Suffrage Restriction in Post-Reconstruction Texas: Urban Politics and the Specter of the Commune.” ''The Journal of Southern History'', vol. 68, no. 1, 2002, pp. 31–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3069690. Accessed September 7, 2020.</ref> In addition, during the post-Reconstruction era, white terrorist violence was directed at Blacks to assert white supremacy. According to records of the Equal Justice Initiative, Harrison County had the third-highest number of lynchings of any county in Texas, from 1877 to 1950.

In the 1870s the county's non-agricultural sector increased when the [[Texas and Pacific Railway]] located its headquarters and shops in Marshall. It stimulated other industry and manufacturing in the county, and also aided the transportation to market of the important cotton commodity crop.<ref name="campbell"/>

But from 1880 to 1930, Harrison County remained primarily agricultural and rural. It had a 60 percent Black majority through 1930. During this period, most of the African Americans worked in agriculture as [[tenant farmer]]s and [[sharecroppers]].

Harrison County had a total of 14 lynchings.<ref>[https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf ''Lynching in America, Third Edition: Supplement by County''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023063004/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf |date=October 23, 2017 }}, p. 9, Equal Justice Initiative, Mobile, AL, 2017</ref> Most were committed in the early 20th century, particularly in the 1910s when the county suffered economic hard times. Whites "did not lynch in lieu of ineffective courts, but instead demonstrated to the black majority that legal protection and rights were inaccessible to blacks".<ref name="jett">[https://digital.library.txstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10877/4643/COMPLETED%20THESIS.pdf;sequence=1 Brandon T. Jett, ''The Bloody Red River: Lynching and Racial Violence in Northeast Texas, 1890-1930'', 2012, M.A. Thesis, p. 63; Texas State University-San Marcos]</ref> Blacks accused of violence against law enforcement or who were from outside the county were particularly at risk, but the terrorist lynchings put all Blacks on notice that whites could take action against them essentially at will.

The Texas legislature [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most Blacks]] in 1901 by requiring [[poll taxes]] and authorizing [[white primaries]] (after various iterations, the latter were overturned by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1944). This disenfranchisement extended into the late 1960s, until after national civil rights legislation was passed to enforce these citizens' constitutional civil rights.<ref>[https://www.laits.utexas.edu/txp_media/html/vce/0503.html "5.3 Historical Barriers to Voting"], ''Texas Politics'', University of Texas website, 2018</ref>

In 1928, oil was discovered in the county. Its exploitation and processing made a significant contribution to the economy.<ref name="campbell"/>

The [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s hit the county hard, decimating the agricultural sector. Mobilization for [[World War II]] brought an end to the depression. As the defense industry built up in major cities and on the West Coast, from 1940 to 1970, a total of more than 4.5 million Blacks migrated from the South, particularly Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, for work and to escape continuing suppression under Jim Crow laws. They moved to the West Coast in the second wave of the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]], attracted to new jobs in the expanding defense industry.

The population of the county declined until 1980, when the trend reversed. White migration from other areas has resulted in a majority-white population. In the realignment of parties in the South since the late 20th century, white conservative voters in Texas have left the Democratic Party to become overwhelmingly affiliated with the Republican Party.<ref name="campbell"/>