Letohatchee is an unincorporated community in Lowndes County,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

, United States. It has a very small population and four businesses. The community is part of the Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 1900 and 1917, whites committed a total of seven

lynchings Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of in ...

of blacks, half of the total 14 in Lowndes County from 1877 to 1950. "Supplement: Lynchings by County/ Louisiana: Ouachita ", 2nd edition
, from ''Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror'', 2015, Equal Justice Institute, Montgomery, Alabama In 1900 they killed all four members of the Jim Cross family.

Location

Letohatchee is located just south of Montgomery in Lowndes County. In the 21st century, much of Letohatchee is uninhabited, with large pastures and uncut woods. Its area is estimated at 18 miles across. This was an area of extensive cotton cultivation into the early decades of the 20th century, and Lowndes County was majority black. Whites' efforts to maintain

white supremacy White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...

raised tensions in the black-majority county. The Democrat-dominated legislature disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites by provisions of a new constitution in 1901. Whites also resorted to racial terrorism in the form of

. In 1900 a mob killed a black man accused of killing a white man. When local black resident Jim Cross objected, he was killed, too, at his house; whites then shot and killed his wife, son and daughter. In 1917 William Powell and his brother (recorded as Samuel or Jesse) were both lynched for alleged insolence to a white farmer on the road."EJI Dedicates Marker to Commemorate Lynchings in Letohatchee, Alabama"
, Equal Justice Initiative, August 1, 2016 No whites were prosecuted in these cases. On July 31, 2016, a historical marker was erected by the

Equal Justice Initiative The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is a non-profit organization, based in Montgomery, Alabama, that provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, poor prisoners without effective representation, and ot ...

to commemorate these extrajudicial executions.

Demographics

Letohatchee was listed on the 1880 and 1890 U.S. Census as a separate community; these were the only years when it was listed separately. It is now included in Montgomery. The zip code for Letohatchee is 36047 and the population for the entire code (of which Letohatchee is a part) was 1,396 as of the 2010 U.S. Census. Of that, it is 71% black and 29% white (with less than 1% for other races).

Industry

Letohatchee has two industrial plants, four convenience stores and one restaurant/cattle yard and a post office. The American Colloid Company operates a

Bentonite Bentonite ( ) is an Absorption (chemistry), absorbent swelling clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite (a type of smectite) which can either be Na-montmorillonite or Ca-montmorillonite. Na-montmorillonite has a considerably greater swelli ...

clay mining operation here.

Education

Doug Jones at a Calhoun Tigers and Pike Road Patriots football game

Calhoun High School is the secondary school for the community.

Notable People

JD Davison Jerdarrian Devontae "JD" Davison (born October 3, 2002) is an American professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Alabama Crimson Tide. He was a consens ...

- Point Guard

Boston Celtics The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NBA), Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference (NBA), ...

Gallery

File:Letohatchee, Alabama Post Office 36047.JPG, Letohatchee Post Office ( ZIP Code: 36047 File:Calhoun Colored School Principal's House 2012.JPG, Calhoun Colored School (1892-1945) was located near Letohatchee. The principal's house, the only surviving original building, was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on March 26, 1976.

References

External links

{{Coord, 32, 07, 47, N, 86, 29, 09, W, type:city_region:US-AL, display=title Unincorporated communities in Alabama Unincorporated communities in Lowndes County, Alabama Montgomery metropolitan area Alabama placenames of Native American origin