Ebenezer is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Holmes County,

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

, United States. It is located at the western end of the eastern segment of

Mississippi Highway 14 Mississippi Highway 14 (MS 14) is a state highway that runs from west to east in the U.S. State of Mississippi. MS 14 serves the counties of Issaquena County, MS, Issaquena, Sharkey County, MS, Sharkey, Humphreys County, MS, Humphreys, Holmes C ...

, approximately south of Lexington, the county seat, and about west of Goodman. According to a 1905 source, Ebenezer was named by settlers after "the old Jewish city". It may have been a destination for some German-Jewish immigrants, who began settling in Lexington and the surrounding county in the 1830s. They were later joined by Russian Jewish immigrants during the latter part of the 19th century. The Jewish community built Temple Beth El in Lexington in 1905; it closed in 2009 due to a declining population."A Final Yom Kippur in the Delta for Mississippi Community Begun in 1830s"
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The Jewish Daily Forward ''The Forward'' (), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ''The New York Times'' reported that Set ...

Notable people

Perry Wilbon Howard was born in Ebenezer in 1877 to African-American parents who had been enslaved. He became an attorney and was part of the second generation of African-American lawyers in the state, practicing in Jackson, the state capital. Despite the 1890 Mississippi constitution, which effectively disfranchised most Black citizens, Howard remained active in the Republican Party. He served as a national committeeman from Mississippi and was also a

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

advocate. Appointed as an aide in the office of the

United States Attorney General The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal government of the United States, federal government. The attorney general acts as the princi ...

during the administration of President

Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he was one of the most ...

, Howard was the highest-ranking African American in government at the time. Robert G. Clark Jr. was born October 3, 1928, in Ebenezer and died on March 4, 2025. In 1967, he became the first African American elected to the Mississippi State Legislature since the Reconstruction era. Until 1976, he was the only African-American representative in the state house, having been reelected multiple times. In 1992, he was elected Speaker Pro Tempore of the Mississippi House of Representatives, a position he held until his retirement in 2003.

References

Unincorporated communities in Holmes County, Mississippi Unincorporated communities in Mississippi {{HolmesCountyMS-geo-stub