Edward C. Walthall

Walthall's years in Grenada belong to the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi. He moved to the town in 1871 as a corporate lawyer for the railroads and in 1875 helped campaign across the state to drive out the Republicans. Historians note that he and his mentor L. Q. C. Lamar publicly rejected violence, largely to forestall federal intervention, while less restrained followers used fraud and intimidation. On Election Day he stepped into a racially charged altercation in Grenada before it became a riot. Frightened Black voters stayed away anyway.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Grenada Freedom Movement Marker — 0.4 mi
  The Mississippi Freedom Trail marker at Line and Green streets for the 1966 Grenada movement, when Black children entering white schools were beaten by a mob and 13 white men were arrested.
• Holly Springs National Forest — 14 mi
  A patchwork national forest of about 155,000 acres in the north Mississippi hills, assembled in the 1930s from worn-out cotton fields and replanted in pine by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
• Carroll County Courthouse — 20 mi
  The courthouse in Carrollton where, on 17 March 1886, armed white men fired into a courtroom and killed about two dozen Black people, and no one was ever charged.
• Winona: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Montgomery County Jail — 21 mi
  Two Freedom Trail stops in Winona for 9 June 1963, when Fannie Lou Hamer and other voting-rights workers were arrested at the bus depot and beaten in the Montgomery County Jail.

More markers nearby

• Grenada Blues — 0.5 mi
• Magic Slim — 0.7 mi
• Grenada Dam — 2.7 mi
• Magic Sam — 4.6 mi