Madison Parish, Louisiana
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Madison Parish (French: Paroisse de Madison) is a parish located on the northeastern border of the U.S. state of Louisiana, in the delta lowlands along the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,017.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Its parish seat is Tallulah.<ref name="GR6">Template:Cite web</ref> It was created by the Louisiana legislature on January 19, 1838, from part of Concordia Parish and was organized by 1839.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> With a history of cotton plantations and pecan farms, the parish economy continues to be primarily agricultural. It has a majority African-American population. For years a ferry connected Delta, Louisiana (and traffic from the parish) to Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Vicksburg Bridge now carries U.S. Route 80 and Interstate 20 across the river into Madison Parish.
History
Prehistory
Template:Main Madison Parish was the home to many succeeding Native American groups in the thousands of years before European settlement. Peoples of the Marksville culture, Troyville culture, Coles Creek culture and Plaquemine culture built villages and earthwork mound complexes throughout the area. Notable mound centers in the parish include Fitzhugh Mounds and the Raffman site, large Coles Creek–Plaquemine complexes documented by state archaeology guides and peer-reviewed research.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Historic tribes which were encountered by European colonists include the Taensa and Natchez peoples, who both spoke the Natchez language.
European settlement to present
The parish is named for former U.S. President James Madison.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As was typical of northern areas of Louisiana, and especially along the Mississippi River, it was developed for cotton agriculture on large plantations worked by large groups of enslaved African Americans. In 1932 a local news writer stated, "Madison still has plantations. They have not vanished entirely. Good roads dot the parish and some owners live in Tallulah, using automobiles to supervise their extensive holdings. When extra help is needed, trucks are used to carry the negroes back and forth."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Following the Reconstruction era and during the Jim Crow era, white Democrats across the state violently suppressed black voting, which was for Republican candidates, and civil rights. Twelve blacks were lynched in Madison Parish from 1877 to 1950, most near the turn of the 20th century when social and economic tensions were the highest.<ref>Lynching in America, Third Edition: Supplement by County Template:Webarchive, p. 6, Equal Justice Initiative, Mobile, AL, 2017</ref> In addition, in July 1899 five immigrant Sicilian grocers were lynched by whites in Tallulah, the parish seat, for failing to observe Jim Crow customs of serving whites before blacks and because they were competing with locals with their stores.<ref name="scambray">Ken Scambray, " 'Corda e Sapone' (Rope and Soap): how the Italians were lynched in the USA" Template:Webarchive, L'Italo-Americano, December 13, 2012; accessed May 14, 2018</ref>
During the Vicksburg campaign, several operations occurred in Madison Parish. On June 7, 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought the Battle of Milliken's Bend in the parish; the National Park Service notes the battlefield site has since been lost to changes in the Mississippi River channel.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On June 15, 1863, Union forces crossed local bayous and burned the then-parish seat of Richmond after the Battle of Richmond, Louisiana.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Two canal projects on the Louisiana side—Grant's Canal at Delta and the Duckport Canal near Duckport—were attempted by Union engineers to bypass Confederate batteries at Vicksburg; a remnant of Grant’s Canal is preserved today as a unit of Vicksburg National Military Park.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Civil rights legislation in 1965 enabled more African Americans to exercise their constitutional rights to register and vote in Madison Parish, and they began to elect candidates of their choice to local offices. In 1969 Zelma Wyche was elected as Police Chief of Tallulah. In 1974 Adell Williams was elected as mayor, the first African American to fill this position.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory and airfield near Tallulah (Shirley/Scott Field) hosted early 1920s crop-dusting experiments against the boll weevil; the airfield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the parish has a total area of Template:Convert, of which Template:Convert is land and Template:Convert (4.1%) is water.<ref name="GR1">Template:Cite web</ref>
Major highways
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Adjacent counties and parishes
- East Carroll Parish (north)
- Warren County, Mississippi (east)
- Tensas Parish (south)
- Franklin Parish (southwest)
- Richland Parish (northwest)
National protected areas
- Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge (portion in Madison, Tensas and Franklin parishes; visitor center ~12 mi SW of Tallulah).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Vicksburg National Military Park — Grant’s Canal unit at Delta.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Communities
Cities
- Tallulah (parish seat and largest municipality)
Villages
Extinct settlements
Transportation
Vicksburg–Tallulah Regional Airport (KTVR) serves the parish near Mound, with a 5,002-ft (1,525 m) runway and general-aviation services.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The I-20 Westbound Louisiana Welcome Center at Mound provides traveler services at Exit 182. The welcome center is closed while under construction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Demographics
Because of limited job opportunities as agriculture has mechanized and the Chicago Lumber Mill closed, the parish population has declined overall by about one-third since its peak in 1980. Numerous African Americans left during the first half of the 20th century in the Great Migration to escape the violence and oppression of Jim Crow; they moved to the North and West. The Census Bureau’s 2024 estimate is 9,093 residents.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2020 census
| Race / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic) | Pop 1980<ref name=1980Census>Template:Cite web</ref> | Pop 1990<ref name=1990Census>Template:Cite web</ref> | Pop 2000<ref name=2000CensusP004>Template:Cite web</ref> | Pop 2010<ref name=2010CensusP2>Template:Cite web</ref> | Pop 2020<ref name=2020CensusP2>Template:Cite web</ref> | % 1980 | % 1990 | % 2000 | % 2010 | % 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White alone (NH) | 6,353 | 4,917 | 5,087 | 4,396 | 3,414 | 39.77% | 39.45% | 37.06% | 36.35% | 34.08% |
| Black or African American alone (NH) | 9,293 | 7,390 | 8,259 | 7,357 | 6,173 | 58.17% | 59.30% | 60.16% | 60.84% | 61.63% |
| Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH) | 5 | 15 | 18 | 23 | 27 | 0.03% | 0.12% | 0.13% | 0.19% | 0.27% |
| Asian alone (NH) | 15 | 8 | 21 | 26 | 6 | 0.09% | 0.06% | 0.15% | 0.22% | 0.06% |
| Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH) | x <ref>included in the Asian category in the 1980 Census</ref> | x <ref>included in the Asian category in the 1990 Census</ref> | 2 | 0 | 5 | x | x | 0.01% | 0.00% | 0.05% |
| Other race alone (NH) | 16 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 0.10% | 0.06% | 0.01% | 0.07% | 0.04% |
| Mixed race or Multiracial (NH) | x <ref>not an option in the 1980 Census</ref> | x <ref>not an option in the 1990 Census</ref> | 51 | 95 | 184 | x | x | 0.37% | 0.79% | 1.84% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 293 | 126 | 288 | 188 | 204 | 1.83% | 1.01% | 2.10% | 1.55% | 2.04% |
| Total | 15,975 | 12,463 | 13,728 | 12,093 | 10,017 | 100.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% |
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 10,017 people, 3,832 households, and 2,443 families residing in the parish.
Out of Louisiana's 64 parishes, it is one of six that have an African-American Majority (2020).
Politics
With its majority-black population, Madison Parish in the 21st century has become a stronghold of support for the Democratic Party. Prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when the state unconstitutionally prevented blacks from voting, the white Madison Parish voters in 1962 supported the Republican nominee Taylor W. O'Hearn for the US Senate; he lost to powerful Democratic incumbent Russell B. Long. O'Hearn polled 58.7 percent among whites in Madison Parish.<ref>Louisiana Secretary of State, General election returns, November 6, 1962</ref> He later was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives from Caddo Parish, also in the northern part of the state.
During the 1970s and 1980s, conservative white voters in Louisiana and other southern states began to shift to supporting Republican presidential candidates, creating a more competitive system than the Solid South. Since the civil rights era, most African Americans in the South have supported Democratic candidates, as the national party supported their drive to exercise constitutional rights as citizens, even though most Southern Democrats remained vehemently opposed to civil rights. In 1988, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts won in Madison Parish, with 2,416 votes (49.2 percent) compared to Republican Vice President George H. W. Bush, who finished in the presidential contest with 2,334 ballots (47.5 percent).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2008, the Democrat Barack Obama of Illinois received 3,100 votes (58.5 percent) in Madison Parish to 2,152 (40.6 percent) for the Republican U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2012, Madison Parish gave President Obama 3,154 votes (60.8 percent) to Mitt Romney's 2,000 ballots (38.6 percent), 152 fewer votes than McCain had received four years earlier.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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Education
Public schools in Madison Parish are operated by the Madison Parish School Board. There is one private school and one magnet school in the parish.
Corrections
The Madison Parish Sheriff's Office operated Madison Parish Detention Center and the privately operated Louisiana Transitional Center for Women are located in Tallulah.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Notable people
References
External links
- Madison Parish Sheriff's Office
- Official website of Madison Parish
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Madison Parish, Louisiana
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