The county had been settled by French, Spanish, and English colonists, and American pioneers as part of the
Natchez District; organized in 1802, it was the fourth county in the
Mississippi Territory. Well before the Civil War, the county had a majority-black population. Grand Gulf, a port on the Mississippi River, shipped thousands of bales of cotton annually before the Civil War. It received cotton shipped by railroad from Port Gibson and three surrounding counties. The trading town became cut off from the river by its changing course and shifting to the west. Grand Gulf had 1,000 to 1500 residents about 1858; by the end of the century, it had 150 and became a ghost town. Businesses in the county seat of Port Gibson, which served the area, included a cotton gin and a cottonseed oil mill (which continued into the 20th century.) It has also been a retail center of trade. After the Reconstruction era, white Democrats regained power in the state legislature by the mid-1870s; paramilitary groups such as the
Red Shirts suppressed black voting through violence and fraud in many parts of the state. These groups acted as "the military arm of the Democratic Party." In the late nineteenth century, these Redeemers redefined districts to "reduce Republican voting strength," creating a "'shoestring' Congressional district running the length of the Mississippi River," where most of the black population was concentrated. Five other districts all had white majorities. While party alignments changed in the 20th century, such gerrymandering has persisted to support white political strength. Claiborne County is within the black-majority
2nd congressional district, as may be seen on the map to the right. The state has three other congressional districts, all white majority. Democrats passed a new constitution in 1890 that included requirements for
poll taxes; these and later
literacy tests (administered subjectively by whites) were used in practice to
disfranchise most blacks and many poor whites, preventing them from registering to vote. This second-class status was enforced by whites until after the
civil rights movement gained passage of the federal
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
Voting Rights Act of 1965. The county's economy continued to be based on agriculture. After the Civil War and emancipation, the system of
sharecropping developed. More than 80 percent of African-American workers were involved in sharecropping from the late 19th century into the 1930s, shaping all aspects of daily life for them. A newspaper account of 1907 reported that a "big colony of whites and blacks are preparing to move the latter part of the year to
Indian Territory to begin the battle of life over again. The depopulation of Claiborne county is a serious thing. This discontent should be remedied for we have no one to take the place of those people on the farms. The
census of 1910 will show a loss of 4000 people from Claiborne county."
20th century to present Excluded from the political process and suffering
lynchings and other violence, many blacks left the county and state in the
Great Migration. In 1900 whites numbered 4565 in the county, and blacks 16,222. As can be seen in the
Historical Population table in the "Demographics" section below, from 1900 to 1920, the population of the county declined by 41%, more than 8500 persons from the peak of 20,787. Most of these rural blacks migrated to the industrial North and Midwest cities, such as
Chicago, to seek jobs and other opportunities elsewhere. Rural whites also migrated out of the South. Despite the passage of national civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s, African Americans in Claiborne County continued to struggle against
white supremacy in most aspects of their lives. The
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission continued to try to spy on and disrupt black meetings. "African Americans insisted on dignified treatment and full inclusion in the community's public life, while whites clung to paternalistic notions of black inferiority and defended inherited privilege." In reaction to harassment and violence, in 1966 blacks formed a group,
Deacons for Defense, which armed to protect the people and was strictly for self-defense. They learned the law and stayed within it. After shadowing police to prevent abuses, its leaders eventually began to work closely with the county sheriff to keep relations peaceful. In later years, five of the Deacons worked in law enforcement and two were the first blacks to run for county sheriff. In the late 1960s, African Americans struggled to integrate schools, and to register and vote. In 1965
NAACP leader
Charles Evers (brother of Medgar, who had been assassinated) became very active in Claiborne County and other areas of southwest Mississippi, including
Adams and
Jefferson counties. He gained an increase in voter registration as well as increasing membership in the
NAACP throughout the region. Evers was influential in a developing a moderate coalition of blacks and white liberals in Mississippi. They wanted to develop alternatives to both the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the all-white
Democratic Regulars. In the June 1966 Democratic primary, blacks in Claiborne and Jefferson counties cast decisive majorities, voting for the MFDP candidate,
Marcus Whitley, for Congress and giving him victory in those counties. In the November election, Evers led an African-American vote for the Independent senatorial candidate,
Prentiss Walker, who won in those counties but lost to incumbent
James O. Eastland, a white Democrat. (Claiborne County and southwest Mississippi were then in the
Mississippi's 4th congressional district.) Walker was a conservative who in 1964 was elected as the first Republican Congressman from Mississippi in the 20th century, as part of a major realignment of political parties in the South. To gain integration of public facilities and more opportunities in local businesses, where no black clerks were hired, African Americans undertook an economic boycott of merchants in the county seat of
Port Gibson. (Similar economic boycotts were conducted in this period in Jackson and Greenville.) Evers led the boycott, enforced its maintenance, and later negotiated with merchants and their representatives on how to end it. While criticized for some of his methods, Evers gained support from the national NAACP for his apparent effectiveness, from the segregationist
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission for negotiating on certain elements, and from local African Americans and white liberals. Since 2003, when Mississippi had to redistrict because it lost a seat in Congress, Claiborne County has been included in the black-majority
2nd congressional district. Its voters strongly support Democratic candidates. The three other districts are white majority and vote for Republicans. ==Law enforcement==