Shubuta, Mississippi

Shubuta, Mississippi
Town
Flag
Location of Shubuta, Mississippi
Shubuta, Mississippi Location in the United States
Coordinates: 31°51′39″N 88°42′2″W / 31.86083°N 88.70056°W / 31.86083; -88.70056
Country	United States
State	Mississippi
County	Clarke
Area [1]
• Total	2.41 sq mi (6.25 km^2)
• Land	2.41 sq mi (6.25 km^2)
• Water	0.00 sq mi (0.00 km^2)
Elevation	203 ft (62 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	406
• Density	168.26/sq mi (64.97/km^2)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code	39360
Area code	601
FIPS code	28-67520
GNIS feature ID	0677756

Shubuta is a town in Clarke County, Mississippi, United States, which is located on the eastern border of the state. The population was 441 as of the 2010 census,^[2] down from 651 at the 2000 census. Developed around an early 19th-century trading post on the Chickasawhay River, it was built near a Choctaw town. Shubuta is a Choctaw word meaning "smokey water".^[3]

History

Shubuta railway depot, on the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad.

Located along the Chickasawhay River, the small town of Shubuta was incorporated in 1865. It had started in the 1830s as a trading post community, located near the Choctaw village of Yowani. During the period of Indian Removal, under the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the Choctaw people ceded most of their lands to the United States. Under the Indian Removal Act, they were given land in exchange in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and most of the people were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi River. Their traditional homelands in the Southeast were sold or made available by lotteries to European Americans for settlement.

The first record of the word "Shubuta" appears on Bernard Roman's "Map of 1772", a copy of which appears in Riley's History of Mississippi. The name was spelled as "Chobuta", which means "smoky water" in the Choctaw language. It became a market town for an area developed for cotton plantations, which depended on the labor of enslaved African Americans. Cotton was shipped downriver from Shubata to Mobile, Alabama, and then to other major ports. The town started growing more rapidly in the 1850s after being connected to other communities by the railroad. At one time the largest town between Meridian, Mississippi, and Mobile, ^{[citation needed]} Shubuta attracted people from 40 miles (64 km) around to shop at its many mercantile businesses.

The first newspaper in the area was the Mississippi Messenger, established in 1879 by Judge Charles A. Stovall. Six houses within Shubuta are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. These are listed in National Register of Historic Places listings in Clarke County, Mississippi, which provides a map link locating them all.

20th-century lynchings

East of the town is a bridge over the river; it is known as the "Hanging Bridge". It was the site of the 20th-century lynch murders of four young Black people in 1918, two of whom were pregnant women, and two male youths in 1942. National newspapers covered the lynchings, and the NAACP conducted investigations in both cases. No one was prosecuted for the murders. In addition to recognition of historic houses in town, the Shubuta Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its significance in state and national history. A total of 10 Black people were lynched in Clarke County from 1877 to 1950.

The county had 10 documented lynchings in the period from 1877 to 1950; most took place in the 20th century.^[4]

Voter suppression and Great Migration

At the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Mississippi disenfranchised most black voters through passing a new constitution that raised barriers to voter registration. In Shubuta whites had also suppressed black voting by destroying ballots, imposing poll tests such as correctly guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar, and intimidation by the Ku Klux Klan.^[5] Following the 1918 lynchings, many black workers left Clarke County, leaving cotton to rot in the fields. The town's population dropped by 21% (See table below) and the county population dropped 17% from 1910 to 1920. (See Demographics, Clarke County, Mississippi)

The first wave of the Great Migration from the rural South continued to the Second World War. In the 1930s, a number of African-American residents from the Shubata area followed Reverend Louis W. Parson to Albany, New York to escape the violence and in a search for industrial jobs and better opportunities.^[5] They created a community to the west of the city, building houses along Rapp Road within what was one land parcel purchased by Parson. Now known as the Rapp Road Community Historic District, the area is listed on the NRHP.

Geography

Shubuta Baptist Church

Shubuta is located near the southern border of Clarke County, on the west side of the Chickasawhay River. U.S. Route 45 bypasses the town on the west, leading north 13 miles (21 km) to Quitman, the county seat, and south 14 miles (23 km) to Waynesboro. Mississippi Highway 145, which leads through the center of Shubuta, follows the old alignment of US 45.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1,500 acres (6.2 km²), all land.^[2]

Demographics

Historical population

Census	Pop.	Note	%±
1880	754		—
1890	589		−21.9%
1900	451		−23.4%
1910	1,168		159.0%
1920	912		−21.9%
1930	720		−21.1%
1940	756		5.0%
1950	782		3.4%
1960	718		−8.2%
1970	602		−16.2%
1980	626		4.0%
1990	577		−7.8%
2000	651		12.8%
2010	441		−32.3%
2020	406		−7.9%
U.S. Decennial Census[6]

2020 census

Shubuta racial composition^[7]
(NH = Non-Hispanic)^[a]

Race	Number	Percentage
White (NH)	62	15.27%
Black or African American (NH)	338	83.25%
Mixed/Multi-Racial (NH)	2	0.49%
Hispanic or Latino	4	0.99%
Total	406

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 406 people, 144 households, and 101 families residing in the town.

2000 census

As of the census^[10] of 2000, there were 651 people, 244 households, and 165 families residing in the town. The population density was 271.0 inhabitants per square mile (104.6/km²). There were 270 housing units at an average density of 112.4 per square mile (43.4/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 25.50% White, 73.89% African American, 0.15% from other races, and 0.46% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.38% of the population.

There were 244 households, out of which 38.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.2% were married couples living together, 23.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 28.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.67 and the average family size was 3.35.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 32.3% under the age of 18, 9.8% from 18 to 24, 26.1% from 25 to 44, 19.7% from 45 to 64, and 12.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 83.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 75.7 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $18,438, and the median income for a family was $21,719. Males had a median income of $24,688 versus $17,813 for females. The per capita income for the town was $9,094. About 38.5% of families and 44.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 59.4% of those under age 18 and 35.9% of those age 65 or over.

Economy

Shubuta was the second home of Hanson Scale Company, a bathroom scale manufacturer. It was later owned by the Sunbeam Corporation. Shubuta is the home of Mississippi Laminators. Producing laminated beams, the company has been in business here since the early 1970s.

Education

Shubuta is served by the Quitman School District.^[11]

The county is in the zone for Jones College.^[12]

Notable people

• Annibel Jenkins, Georgia Tech professor
• Tarvarius Moore, NFL Strong Safety
• Robert Staten, former NFL running back^[13]
• Gayle Graham Yates, women's studies and American studies academic^[14]

References

1. "2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved July 24, 2022.
2. "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Shubuta town, Mississippi". U.S. Census Bureau, American Factfinder. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved October 6, 2014.
3. Primm, Rosalie (August 6, 1981). "Shubuta Clarke County's first Indian Tourist Center". Clarke County Tribune. Retrieved December 18, 2019 – via newspapers.com.
4. Lynching in America, 2nd edition Archived June 27, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Supplement by County, p. 4
5. Jennifer A. Lemak, Southern Life, Northern City, The History of Albany's Rapp Road Community, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008
6. "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
7. "Explore Census Data". data.census.gov. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
8. https://www.census.gov/ ^{[not specific enough to verify]}
9. "About the Hispanic Population and its Origin". www.census.gov. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
10. "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
11. "2020 CENSUS - SCHOOL DISTRICT REFERENCE MAP: Clarke County, MS" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved September 27, 2024. - Text list
12. "Profile". Jones College. Retrieved September 27, 2024.
13. "Robert Staten". ProFootballArchives.com. Retrieved May 17, 2020.
14. "Obituary for Gayle Graham Yates". Star Tribune. May 7, 2023. Retrieved July 6, 2024.

1. Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.^[8][9]

Further reading

• Terrence Finnegan, A Deed So Accursed: Lynching in Mississippi and South Carolina, 1881 – 1940, Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 2013
• NAACP, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1898 – 1918, National Association of Colored People, 1919
• NAACP papers, Part 7, Series A, Reels 1 and 2, University of Michigan microfilm collections
• Jason Morgan Ward, "The Infamous Lynching Site That Still Stands in Mississippi", adapted from Hanging Bridge: Racial Violence and America’s Civil Rights Century, 2016, excerpt printed in TIME Magazine, May 3, 2016
• Jason Morgan Ward, Hanging Bridge: Racial Violence and America’s Civil Rights Century, University of Oxford Press, 2016
• Gayle Graham Yates, Life and Death in a Small Southern Town: Memories of Shubuta, Mississippi, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2004