Editing Liberty, Mississippi

{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{Infobox settlement
|official_name            = Liberty, Mississippi
|settlement_type          = [[Town]]
|nickname                 = 
|motto                    =

<!-- Images -->
|image_skyline            = Amite county ms courthouse 2018.jpg
|imagesize                = 
|image_caption            = Amite County Courthouse in Liberty
|image_flag               = 
|image_seal               =

<!-- Maps -->
|image_map = Amite_County_Mississippi_Incorporated_and_Unincorporated_areas_Liberty_Highlighted.svg
|mapsize                  = 250px
|map_caption              = Location of Liberty, Mississippi
|image_map1               = 
|mapsize1                 = 
|map_caption1             = 
| pushpin_map = USA
| pushpin_map_caption = Location in the United States

<!-- Location -->
|subdivision_type         = [[List of sovereign states|Country]]
|subdivision_name         = United States
|subdivision_type1        = [[U.S. state|State]]
|subdivision_name1        = [[Mississippi]]
|subdivision_type2        = [[List of counties in Mississippi|County]]
|subdivision_name2        = [[Amite County, Mississippi|Amite]]
|government_footnotes     = 
|government_type          = 
|leader_title             = Mayor
|leader_name              = Pat Talbert
|leader_title1            = 
|leader_name1             = 
|established_title        = 
|established_date         =

<!-- Area -->
|unit_pref                = Imperial
|area_footnotes           = <ref name="CenPopGazetteer2020">{{cite web|title=2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files|url=https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps-data/data/gazetteer/2020_Gazetteer/2020_gaz_place_28.txt|publisher=United States Census Bureau|accessdate=July 24, 2022}}</ref>
|area_magnitude           = 
|area_total_km2           = 5.34
|area_land_km2            = 5.34
|area_water_km2           = 0.00
|area_total_sq_mi         = 2.06
|area_land_sq_mi          = 2.06
|area_water_sq_mi         = 0.00
|area percentage          =

<!-- Population -->
|population_as_of         = [[2020 United States census|2020]]
|population_footnotes     = 
|population_total         = 560
|population_density_km2   = 104.90
|population_density_sq_mi = 271.71

<!-- General information -->
|timezone                 = [[North American Central Time Zone|Central (CST)]]
|utc_offset               = -6
|timezone_DST             = CDT
|utc_offset_DST           = -5
|elevation_footnotes      = 
|elevation_m              = 103
|elevation_ft             = 338
|coordinates              = {{coord|31|9|39|N|90|48|14|W|region:US_type:city|display=inline,title}}
|postal_code_type         = [[ZIP code]]
|postal_code              = 39645
|area_code                = [[Area code 601|601]]
|blank_name               = [[Federal Information Processing Standard|FIPS code]]
|blank_info               = 28-40640
|blank1_name              = [[Geographic Names Information System|GNIS]] feature ID
|blank1_info              = 0672435
|website                  = {{URL|http://www.amitecounty.ms/liberty}}
|footnotes                = 
|pop_est_as_of = 
|pop_est_footnotes = 
|population_est = 
}}
'''Liberty''' is a town in [[Amite County, Mississippi]]. It is part of the [[McComb, Mississippi]] [[McComb micropolitan area|micropolitan statistical area]]. It is the [[county seat]] of Amite County.<ref name="GR6">{{cite web|url=http://www.naco.org/Counties/Pages/FindACounty.aspx |accessdate=June 7, 2011 |title=Find a County |publisher=National Association of Counties |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110531210815/http://www.naco.org/Counties/Pages/FindACounty.aspx |archivedate=May 31, 2011 }}</ref>

The town can be accessed via [[Interstate 55 in Mississippi|I-55]], then west on [[Mississippi Highway 24]]. McGehee Air Park is located about a mile west of town.

Liberty celebrates its Heritage Days Festival during the first weekend of each May.

Air Cruisers manufacturing plant is located in Liberty. Owned by [[Zodiac Aerospace]], the plant produces evacuation slides, life rafts, and life vests for the aviation industry.

Eleven sites in or near Liberty are listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places listings in Amite County, Mississippi|National Register of Historic Places]].

==History==
{{More citations needed section|date=November 2022}}
[[File:Confederate Monument, Liberty, Mississippi.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Erected in 1871, the [[Confederate Monument (Liberty, Mississippi)|Confederate Monument]] in Liberty was the first in Mississippi.<ref>{{cite web | last = Taylor | first = Dawn | title = Confederate Monument, Liberty, MS | publisher = The Battle of Liberty, MS. | date = August 31, 2014 | url = http://thebattleofliberty.org/blog/confederate-monument-liberty-ms/ | access-date = February 16, 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170217143600/http://thebattleofliberty.org/blog/confederate-monument-liberty-ms/ | archive-date = February 17, 2017 | url-status = dead }}</ref>]]
Liberty was incorporated on February 24, 1809. The Amite County Courthouse in Liberty is the oldest in Mississippi. Erected in 1839, the courthouse was enlarged and modernized in 1936.<ref>{{cite web | title = Amite Repairs Court House | publisher = [[Woodville Republican]] | date = May 2, 1936 | url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=afskAAAAIBAJ&sjid=chEGAAAAIBAJ&dq=liberty-mississippi&pg=4566%2C1422037}}</ref> It is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places listings in Amite County, Mississippi|National Register of Historic Places]].

The Amite Female Seminary (also known as the 'Little Red Schoolhouse'), built in 1853, was a girls finishing school located in Liberty.  During the [[American Civil War]], in the spring of 1863, Federal troops under the command of [[Colonel Benjamin Grierson]], a former music teacher, burned the school, but spared the school's music building.  The Federal commander permitted musical instruments to be removed, and was prepared to give the order to torch the building, when he recognized the music school's director, Rev. Milton Shirk, as a former classmate from New York.  The two-story, two-room music building survives to this day on Mississippi Highway 569, and is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places listings in Amite County, Mississippi|National Register of Historic Places]].<ref>{{cite web | title = National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form | publisher = U.S. Dept. of the Interior | year = 1980 | url = http://www.apps.mdah.ms.gov/nom/prop/2763.pdf}}</ref>

[[Gail Borden]], who developed a process in the early 1850s for condensing milk and founded the New York Condensed Milk Company (later known as [[Borden (company)|Borden Inc.]], lived in Liberty from 1822 to 1829.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

Between 1904 and 1921, a branch of the [[Liberty–White Railroad]], a narrow-gauge logging rail line serving the White Lumber Company, ran between [[McComb, Mississippi]] and Liberty.<ref>{{cite book | last = McElvaine | first = Robert S. | title = Mississippi: The WPA Guide to the Magnolia State | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | isbn = 9781604732894 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=C4VQ8viRWvYC&pg=PP1}}</ref>

During the [[Civil Rights Movement]], in September 1961, [[Herbert Lee (activist)|Herbert Lee]], an African-American dairy farmer and member of NAACP, was murdered in Liberty at the Westbrook Cotton Gin by [[E.H. Hurst]], a white state legislator. Lee had attended voter registration classes and volunteered to try to register to vote, Witnesses to the killing were intimidated by armed white men in the courtroom to support Hurst's claim of self-defense, and he was released without charges. [[Murder of Louis Allen|Louis Allen]], a married African-American landowner with a logging business, reported the truth about the crime to federal officials while seeking protection for testimony. He did not get protection. He suffered economic blackmail, arrests and harassment, and was killed in January 1964.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

Liberty was the location of the fourth-wettest tropical cyclone in Mississippi in 2001; [[Tropical Storm Allison]] dropped {{convert|18.95|in|mm}} of precipitation.

[[Liberty, Texas]] is thought to have been named after this town, as numerous families from Amite County moved west in the 1820s to settle in the Atascosito district north-east of [[Houston]].<ref>{{cite web | last = Schaadt | first = Robert L. | title = Texas History ~ Founders of Liberty: Hugh Blair Johnston | work = The Vindicator | date = July 13, 2011 | url = http://www.thevindicator.com/history/article_04049cec-ad9d-11e0-81aa-001cc4c03286.html}}</ref>

==Geography==
According to the [[United States Census Bureau]], the town covers an area of {{convert|5.3|sqkm|disp=flip}}, of which {{convert|0.002|sqkm|disp=flip}}, or 0.03%, is water.<ref name="Census 2010">{{cite web |title=Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Liberty town, Mississippi |url=http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_DP/G001/1600000US2840640 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200212185358/http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_DP/G001/1600000US2840640 |archive-date=February 12, 2020 |accessdate=June 19, 2013 |publisher=U.S. Census Bureau, American Factfinder}}</ref>

==Demographics==
{{US Census population
|1900= 392
|1910= 556
|1920= 515
|1930= 551
|1940= 665
|1950= 683
|1960= 642
|1970= 612
|1980= 669
|1990= 624
|2000= 633
|2010= 728
|2020= 560
|footnote=U.S. Decennial Census<ref name="DecennialCensus">{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census.html|title=Census of Population and Housing|publisher=Census.gov|accessdate=June 4, 2015}}</ref>
}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+Liberty racial composition as of 2020<ref>{{Cite journal|date=January 22, 2008|title=Census of Population and Housing, 2000 [United States]: Race and Hispanic or Latino Summary File|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/icpsr13575|access-date=December 17, 2021|website=ICPSR Data Holdings|doi=10.3886/icpsr13575 }}</ref>
!Race
!Num.
!Perc.
|-
|[[White (U.S. Census)|White]] (non-Hispanic)
|403
|71.96%
|-
|[[African American (U.S. Census)|Black or African American]] (non-Hispanic)
|122
|21.79%
|-
|[[Race (United States Census)|Other/Mixed]]
|21
|3.75%
|-
|[[Hispanic (U.S. Census)|Hispanic]] or [[Latino (U.S. Census)|Latino]]
|14
|2.5%
|}
As of the [[2020 United States census]], there were 560 people, 282 households, and 184 families residing in the town.

==Education==
The town of Liberty is served by the [[Amite County School District]]. Liberty is also the home of Amite School Center, a K-12 education institution that is a member of the [[Mississippi Association of Independent Schools]]. The town manages a state property named the Ethel Stratton Vance Natural Area, just west of town, which is often used for educational purposes and is home to sports fields, camping areas, a large equestrian center, and over 200 acres of biologically diverse ravines, beaver impoundments, and bottomland hardwood forest along the West Fork [[Amite River]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.amitecounty.ms/ethel-stratton-vance-natural-area|title=Ethel Stratton Vance Natural Area|publisher=Amite County, Mississippi|accessdate=March 17, 2018}}</ref>
<gallery mode="packed" heights="140px">
File:Amite Female Seminary, commonly known as the "Little Red Schoolhouse.jpg|Amite Female Seminary, commonly known as the "Little Red Schoolhouse," established in 1853 and spared during the Civil War
File:Liberty drug store 2018.jpg|Liberty ([[Rexall]]) [[Pharmacy (shop)|Drug Store]], Main Street
</gallery>

==Notable people==
* [[Murder of Louis Allen|Louis Allen]], property owner and logger
* [[T. F. Badon]], member of the [[Mississippi House of Representatives]] from 1952 to 1956<ref>{{cite web|title=T.F. Badon, a Server and Friend Dies at 92|work=The Southern Herald|url=http://archives.etypeservices.com/RickStratton1/Magazine87633/Publication/Magazine87633.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200112080713/http://archives.etypeservices.com/RickStratton1/Magazine87633/Publication/Magazine87633.pdf |archive-date=January 12, 2020 |url-status=live|date=May 28, 2015|pages=1, 8|accessdate=May 18, 2020}}</ref>
* [[Carl Elkanah Bates]], President of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1970-1972<ref name="NYTBates">Saxon, W. 2000.[https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/10/us/the-rev-carl-elkanah-bates-85-former-southern-baptist-leader.html The Rev. Carl Elkanah Bates, 85, Former Southern Baptist Leader] ''The New York Times'', Jan. 10, 2000, Sec. B, p. 7.</ref>
* [[L. C. Bates]], African-American civil rights activist and the husband of [[Daisy Bates (civil rights activist)|Daisy Bates]].
* [[James Brown (American football guard)|James Brown]], former [[American football]] [[offensive line]]man<ref>{{cite web |title=James Brown|url=http://www.espn.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/player/_/id/77160/james-brown |website=ESPN |accessdate=May 18, 2020}}</ref>
* [[Will Campbell (Baptist minister)|Will D. Campbell]], minister, author, and civil rights activist
* [[Jerry Clower]], country comedian
* [[E. H. Hurst]], member of the [[Mississippi House of Representatives]]
* [[Gabe Jackson]], American football player for the [[Oakland Raiders]], [[Las Vegas Raiders]] and [[Seattle Seahawks]] of the [[National Football League]] (NFL)
* [[Herbert Lee (activist)|Herbert Lee]], civil rights activist
* [[William F. Love]], U.S. Representative from Mississippi
* [[Glenn Moore (softball)|Glenn Moore]], softball coach
* [[Clyde V. Ratcliff]], member of the Louisiana Senate from 1944 to 1948, was born in Liberty in 1879<ref>Obituary of Clyde V. Ratcliff Sr., ''Tensas Gazette'', October 8, 1952.</ref>
* [[Andy Rodgers (musician)|Andy Rodgers]], (March 14, 1922 – August 14, 2004) was a Delta blues harmonicist, guitarist, singer and songwriter born nearby Liberty in 1922<ref name="Appeal">{{cite web|last=Lee |first=Ching |url=http://www.appeal-democrat.com/legendary-mid-valley-blues-man-dies-at/article_d4693b6c-babe-5873-b1ce-c6f640fc62ea.html |title=Legendary Mid-Valley blues man dies at 82 - Appeal-Democrat: Home |website=Appeal-Democrat.com |date=August 18, 2004 |accessdate=October 27, 2016}}</ref>
* [[Jamie Lynn Spears]], actress and singer
* [[George H. Tichenor]], inventor of an antiseptic, briefly lived and married in Liberty<ref>{{cite book|last1=Huff|first1=Robert Glen|last2=Nunnery|first2=Hattie Pearl|title=Amite County & Liberty, Mississippi: Celebrating 200 Years|date=2009|publisher=Donning Company Publishers|location=Virginia Beach, VA|isbn=978-1-57864-547-3}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.amitecounty.ms/liberty Liberty website]

{{Amite County, Mississippi}}
{{Mississippi county seats}}

{{authority control}}

[[Category:Cities in Mississippi]]
[[Category:Towns in Amite County, Mississippi]]
[[Category:Cities in Amite County, Mississippi]]
[[Category:Towns in Mississippi]]
[[Category:County seats in Mississippi]]
[[Category:Towns in McComb micropolitan area]]