Amite County Courthouse

Finished about 1840, this is the oldest courthouse in Mississippi in continuous use; it was enlarged and modernized in 1936. Who ran it changed sharply. At the end of the Civil War Amite County was 60 percent Black, and during Reconstruction freedmen elected several Black men to local office, including county sheriff. After 1890 the state constitution's poll tax and literacy test, administered by whites, dropped most Black voters and many poor white ones from the rolls. The county has 14 documented lynchings between 1877 and 1950, most around 1900.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Homochitto National Forest — 21 mi
  A 191,839-acre national forest in seven southwest Mississippi counties, replanted by the Civilian Conservation Corps, with Clear Springs and the 1,075-acre Okhissa Lake.

More markers nearby

• Liberty — steps away
• Confederate Monument — steps away
• Amite Female Seminary — 0.3 mi
• Europe Bates School — 9.4 mi