Philadelphia, Mississippi

Template:About Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox settlement Philadelphia is a city in and the county seat of Neshoba County,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="GR6">Template:Cite web</ref> Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,118 at the 2020 census.

History

File:Beacon Street, Courthouse Square, Philadelphia, Mississippi.jpg

Courthouse Square

Philadelphia is incorporated as a municipality; it was given its current name, after Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,<ref name="britannica"/> in 1903, two years before the railroad brought new opportunities and prosperity to the town. The history of the town and its influences- social, political and economic- can be seen in the many points of interest within and beyond the city limits. These range from the large ceremonial Indian mound and cave at Nanih Waiya, built approximately 1700 years ago and sacred to the Choctaw; to the still thriving Williams Brothers Store, a true old-fashioned general store founded in 1907 and featured in National Geographic in 1937 as a source of anything from "horse collars to straw hats."<ref name=Nat-Geo-Magazine>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner

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File:Goodman Cheney and Schwerner Murder Site Marker.jpg

State of Mississippi roadside marker denoting the location where the 1964 murders of American civil rights workers Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner took place

In the mid-20th century, Mississippi was a battleground of the civil rights movement as, like other states of the South, it had long disfranchised blacks and subjected them to racial segregation and Jim Crow laws. Philadelphia in June 1964 was the scene of the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from Meridian, Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old Jewish anthropology student from New York City; and Michael Schwerner, a 24-year-old Jewish CORE organizer and former social worker, also from New York. Their deaths demonstrated the risks that civil rights workers took to secure the constitutional rights of African Americans.

Ku Klux Klan members (including Cecil Price, a deputy sheriff of Neshoba County) released the three young men from jail, took them to an isolated spot, and killed them, then buried them in an earthen dam. It was some time after they disappeared before the bodies were discovered, as a result of an FBI investigation and national media attention.<ref>Lynching of Chaney, Schwerner & Goodman ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> The national outrage over their deaths helped procure support for Congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The murders and related conspiracy gave rise to the "Mississippi Burning" trial, United States v. Price.

Reagan's visit

Template:Main On August 3, 1980, Ronald Reagan gave his first post-convention speech at the Neshoba County Fair after being officially chosen as the Republican nominee for President of the United States. He said: "I believe in states' rights ... I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment." He went on to promise to "restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Dupree's record breaker

Marcus Dupree played high school football for the Philadelphia High School Tornadoes from 1978 to 1981. He was an outstanding athlete who was widely recognized for his achievements.<ref name="LO">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Dupree scored 87 touchdowns total during his playing time in high school, breaking the record set by Herschel Walker by one.<ref name=deitsch>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1981, Marcus's final High School football game was played at Warriors Stadium of the tribal high school at the Choctaw Indian Reservation.<ref name=W_Morris> Template:Cite book </ref> The author Willie Morris described the audience at Dupree's final high school game as "the most distinctive crowd I had ever seen ... four thousand or so people seemed almost an equal of mix of whites, blacks, and Indians ... "<ref name=Morris> Template:Cite book</ref>

First black mayor

In May 2009, Philadelphia elected its first black mayor, James A. Young, a 53-year-old Pentecostal preacher and a former county supervisor.<ref name="CNN Young">Template:Cite news</ref> He defeated Rayburn Waddell, a white, three-term incumbent, by 46 votes in the Democratic primary (there was no Republican challenger).<ref name="NYT Young">Template:Cite news</ref> Jim Prince, publisher of the local The Neshoba Democrat newspaper said, "Philadelphia will always be connected to what happened here in 1964, but the fact that Philadelphia, Mississippi, with its notorious past, could elect a black man as mayor, it might be time to quit picking on Philadelphia, Mississippi."<ref name="CNN Young" /> Young's campaign staff credited Barack Obama's presidential campaign for increasing registration of black and young voters in Philadelphia, many of whom voted for Young.<ref name="NYT Young" /> His term began July 3, 2009.

Past Mayors

	Name	Term in office	Length of service
1	Lee Johnston Catledge	1909 – 1910	1 year
2	W. H. Jenkins	1910 – Unknown	Unknown
3	W. H. Jenkins	1913 – Unknown	Unknown
4	Samuel Hurd Spivey	1916 – 1916	1 year
5	Joseph Eades Jolly	1917 – Unknown	Unknown
6	Samuel Hurd Spivey	1919 – 1920	1 year
7	Ambrose Benjamin McCraw	1923 – Unknown	Unknown
8	Joseph Eades Jolly	1929 – Unknown	Unknown
9	John Kindred Gillis	1932 – Unknown	Unknown
10	Ethelbert Dees Stribling	1940 – Unknown	Unknown
11	Marshall Prince	1944 – Unknown	Unknown
12	Ethelbert Dees Stribling	1950 – Unknown	Unknown
13	Norman A. Johnson, Jr.	1953 – 1955	2 years
14	Clayton Lewis	1956 – 1961	5 years
15	Abner Davis Harbour	1961 – 1968	7 years

File:Williams Brothers store.JPG

Williams Brothers Store

File:Philadelphia Mississippi.JPG

Philadelphia, Mississippi seen from the east end of town.

File:Philadelphia Neshoba County Library.jpg

Philadelphia - Neshoba County Library

Geography

Philadelphia is located at Template:Coord (32.774070, -89.112891).<ref name="GR1">Template:Cite web</ref>

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of Template:Convert, of which Template:Convert are land and Template:Convert (0.19%) is water.

Demographics

Template:US Census population

2020 census

Philadelphia Racial Composition<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Race	Num.	Perc.
White	2,899	40.73%
Black or African American	3,615	50.79%
Native American	217	3.05%
Asian	54	0.76%
Other/Mixed	199	2.8%
Hispanic or Latino	134	1.88%

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 7,118 people, 2,836 households, and 1,804 families residing in the city.

2000 census

As of the census<ref name="GR2">Template:Cite web</ref> of 2000, there were 7,303 people, 2,950 households, and 1,899 families residing in the city. The population density was Template:Convert. There were 3,302 housing units at an average density of Template:Convert. The racial makeup of the city was 55.54% White, 40.12% African American, 2.01% Native American, 0.49% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 0.55% from other races, and 1.20% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino were 1.51% of the population.

There were 2,950 households, out of which 30.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.8% were married couples living together, 20.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.6% were non-families. 32.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 3.00.

In the city, the population was spread out, with 26.1% under the age of 18, 9.1% from 18 to 24, 25.9% from 25 to 44, 21.0% from 45 to 64, and 17.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 81.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 73.8 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $26,438, and the median income for a family was $30,756. Males had a median income of $30,731 versus $20,735 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,787. About 25.1% of families and 28.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 41.1% of those under age 18 and 16.4% of those age 65 or over.

Arts and culture

Museums and other points of interest

Geyser Falls Water Theme Park
Silver Star Casino
Neshoba County Fair
Choctaw Indian Fair
Philadelphia-Neshoba County Museum
Marty Stuart Congress of Country Music

Education

File:PhiladelphiaHSMS.JPG

Philadelphia High School

Most of the City of Philadelphia is served by the Philadelphia Public School District. A portion is zoned to the Neshoba County School District.<ref>Template:Cite web - Text list</ref>

Media

The Neshoba Democrat is published in Philadelphia. It is a weekly newspaper that was established in 1881.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Infrastructure

Public utilities

Cable television services for the city of Philadelphia are contracted to MetroCast Communications.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Electrical utilities, as well as water and sewer service, are provided by the City of Philadelphia as Philadelphia Utilities. The natural gas utility is CenterPoint Energy. AT&T is the local telephone service provider.