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Holmes County is a county in the U.S. state of Mississippi; its western border is formed by the Yazoo River and the eastern border by the Big Black River. The western part of the county is within the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. As of the 2010 census, the population was 19,198.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/28/28051.html )〕 Its county seat is Lexington.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-06-07 )〕 The county is named in honor of David Holmes, territorial governor and the first governor of the state of Mississippi. In the years after the Civil War, freedmen acquired land in the Delta by clearing and selling timber, but many lost their land during hard times in the early 20th century, becoming tenant farmers or sharecroppers. Cotton was a commodity crop. Largely rural and agricultural, the county had steep population declines from 1940 to 1970, during the second wave of the Great Migration, as African Americans migrated out of the Deep South to areas with greater opportunity, particularly West Coast cities. African Americans reacquired land in the 1940s. By 1960, Holmes County still had 800 independent black farmers who owned 50% of the land, more such farmers than in any other county in the state.〔 These farmers became integral members of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s. In 1967, eight of ten black candidates to run for local office in the county for the first time since Reconstruction were farmers. Robert G. Clark, a teacher in Holmes County, was the only black elected as state representative that year and the first since Reconstruction; he served as the only African American in the state house until 1976. He continued to be re-elected to the state legislature into the 21st century. In the late 20th century, he was elected to the first of three terms as Speaker of the state House. ==History== The western border of the county is formed by the Yazoo River, so it is next to the Mississippi Delta, and shares its characteristics. The eastern border is formed by the Big Black River. The county was developed for cotton plantations in the antebellum era before the American Civil War, with most properties of the period located along the riverfronts for transportation access. But the majority of the county was still undeveloped frontier at the time of the war. Due to the plantation economy and reliance on slave labor, the county was majority black before the Civil War. Enslaved African Americans were used to cultivate and process the cotton. The county was majority black until after 1940, when thousands left during the Great Migration. "According to U.S. Census data, the 1860 Holmes County population included 5,806 whites, 10 “free colored” and 11,975 slaves. By the 1870 census, the white population had increased about 6% to 6,145, and the “colored” population had increased about 10% to 13,225."〔 ("HOLMES COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI/ LARGEST SLAVEHOLDERS FROM 1860 SLAVE CENSUS SCHEDULES and SURNAME MATCHES FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS ON 1870 CENSUS" ), compiled by Tom Blake, April 2003, accessed 8 June 2015〕 After the war, many freedmen and white migrants went to Holmes County and other parts of the Mississippi Delta, where they developed the bottomlands behind the riverfront properties, clearing and selling timber in order to acquire their own lands.〔 〔 Workers were also attracted to the Delta area by higher than usual wages on the plantations, which had a labor shortage in the transition to a free labor economy. By the turn of the 20th century, a majority of the landowners in the Delta counties were black. Effectively blacks were disenfranchised by the new constitution of 1890; the loss of political power added to their economic problems associated with the financial Panic of 1893. Unable to gain credit, many African-American landowners lost their properties by 1920. In this period, they were also competing for land with the better-funded timber and railroad companies. In the early years of the 20th century, many of these landowners and their descendants became sharecroppers or tenant farmers.〔(John Otto Solomon, ''The Final Frontiers, 1880–1930: Settling the Southern Bottomlands'' ), Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999, p.50〕〔John C. Willis, ''Forgotten Time: The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta after the Civil War,'' Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000〕 White planters continued to recruit labor in the area, as freedmen wanted to work on their own account. The first Chinese immigrant laborers entered the Delta in the late 1870s. From 1900-1930, additional Chinese immigrants arrived in Mississippi, including some to Holmes County. They worked hard to leave field labor and often became merchants, especially becoming grocers in the small Delta towns. As their socioeconomic status changed, the Chinese Americans carved out a niche "between black and white", successfully suing to gain admission to white schools for their children. After being concentrated in the Delta, most moved to larger cities after the decline of small towns through the 20th century. In Mississippi, the number of ethnic Chinese has increased overall in the state through 2010, although it is still small in total - fewer than 5,000.〔Loewn, James W. ''The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White.'' Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1988, 2nd edition.〕〔O’Brien, Robert W. “Status of the Chinese in the Mississippi Delta.” ''Social Forces'' (March 1941), pp. 386-390〕〔Quan, Robert Seto. ''Lotus Among the Magnolias: The Mississippi Chinese.'' Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1982〕 During the New Deal, the Roosevelt administration worked through the Farmers Home Administration to provide low-interest loans in order to increase black land ownership. In Holmes County, numerous blacks became landowners through this program in the 1940s. They were fiercely independent and were among strong supporters of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, even as whites kept a grip on economic and political power through banks, police and the county courthouse.〔(Map: Holmes County, Mississippi ), The Legacy of SNCC and the Fight for Voting Rights, One Person/One Vote website, 2015, Duke University, accessed 10 June 2015〕 Although there had been outmigration, the population was still 42% black.〔 In 1954 some whites formed the White Citizens Council, expressly to oppose desegregation of public schools after the United States Supreme Court decision that year in ''Brown v. Board of Education'', finding segregation to be unconstitutional. They raised funds to support white-only schools, and conducted economic boycotts of blacks suspected of civil rights activism, as well as social and political pressure against whites who crossed them. Among their targets in the latter category was Hazel Brannon Smith, publisher and editor of two local papers. For three years, her customers resisted the Council's effort to boycott her and cut out her advertising; they started a rival newspaper to try to take away her business. Opponents arranged for her husband to be fired from his job as county hospital administrator, and a group firebombed two of her papers. She received a Pulitzer Prize for journalism for her editorials about the civil rights movement during this period.〔(Hazel Brannon Smith, "Bombed, Burned, and Boycotted" ), Alicia Patterson Foundation, 1984, accessed 28 November 2015〕 Beginning in the World War II period, the population of Holmes County declined markedly from its peak of 1940; through 1970 thousands of African Americans left to seek work, especially on the West Coast or in Midwestern cities in the second wave of the Great Migration. From 1950 to 1960, for instance, some 6,000 blacks left the county,〔 a decline of nearly 19%. But in 1960 the county was 72% black, with a total population of 27,100.〔 Even with these problems, in 1960 Holmes County had more independent black farmers than any other county in the state: 800 black farmers owned 50% of the land in the county.〔(Sue (Lorenzi) Sojourner, "Got to Thinking: How the Black People of Holmes Co., Mississippi Organized Their Civil Rights Movement" ), Praxis International, Exhibit, Duluth, MN〕 They were among those who initiated the civil rights movement, particularly farmers of Mileston. They invited organizers of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to come to Mileston to help them take action. The majority of the first fourteen blacks who attempted to register to vote on April 9, 1963 were landowners.〔 Holmes County became the site of renewed organizing of grassroots efforts for African-American civil rights, with people designated as responsible for its Beats and precincts.〔 The Freedom Democratic Party was organized in 1964 to work on black voter registration and education, and continued after passage of civil rights laws. For instance, where white Democratic Party officials had defined the very large Lexington precinct, the county chapter of the FDP organized its own sub-precincts in it in order to communicate better with its community.〔(Sue-Henry Lorenzi, "Holmes County Freedom Democratic Party Executive Members' Handbook," August 1966 ), Southern Freedom Movement Documents 1951-1968/ Listed by Kind of Document, Civil Rights Movement Veterans website〕 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were important but had to be implemented on the local level. While legally racial discrimination was to be ended in voter registration and electoral practices, the FDP took on the responsibility to register black voters and encourage them to vote, as well as work on community issues countywide. In 1966 many communities concentrated on setting up the new federal Head Start program for young children. The FDP continued to work with other communities on correcting unfair hiring at factories and unequal administration of welfare, as well as trying to end discrimination at eating places.〔Sue (Lorenzi) Sojourner and Cheryl Reitan, (''Thunder of Freedom: Black Leadership and the Transformation of 1960s Mississippi'' ), Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013. ISBN 0813140935〕 From 1966 on, the FDP registered an increasing number of black voters and gained their participation in elections. In 1967 black farmers who had been part of the Movement since the early 1960s made up eight of ten candidates to run for local office in the county: T.C. Johnson, Ed McGaw, Jr., Ward Montgomery, John Malone, Willie James Burns, John Daniel Wesley, Griffin McLaurin and Ralthus Hayes.〔 Robert G. Clark (born 1928) and Robert Smith, both teachers, had joined the Movement in 1966 and ran for state representative and county sheriff, respectively. Clark was a member of a landowning family in the Ebenezer Community; he won as the first and only black elected in 1967 to the Mississippi House of Representatives. By 2000, he had been re-elected to eight four-year terms in the state house and had been elected as Speaker three times since 1992.〔("Robert G. Clark, 26 October 2000 (video)" ), The Morris W. H. (Bill) Collins Speaker Series, Mississippi State University, accessed 10 June 2015〕 In the 1967 election, McLaurin was elected as constable.〔 It was not until 1976 that another African American was elected to the state legislature, but then the number increased. They were elected to local offices before that. Whites have also left the county since the mid-20th century because of declining opportunity. Agribusinesses have bought up large tracts of land. By 2010, the total population was less than half that of 1940. Still largely rural, Holmes County in the 21st century has problems associated with poverty and limited access to health care; it has the lowest life expectancy of any county in the United States, for both men and women. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Holmes County, Mississippi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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