Liberty is a town in

Amite County, Mississippi Amite County is a county located in the state of Mississippi on its southern border with Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 12,720. Its county seat is Liberty. The county is named after the Amite River, which runs through th ...

. It is part of the

McComb, Mississippi McComb is a city in Pike County, Mississippi, United States. The city is approximately south of Jackson. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 12,790. It is the principal city of the McComb, Mississippi Micropolitan Statis ...

micropolitan statistical area. It is the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Amite County. The town can be accessed via

I-55 Interstate 55 (I-55) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. The ...

, then west on

Mississippi Highway 24 Mississippi Highway 24 (MS 24) is a state highway in Mississippi, United States. The highway runs from Fort Adams east to an interchange with Interstate 55 (I-55) and U.S. Highway 98 (US 98) in McComb. The roadway passes through Wilkinson, ...

. McGehee Air Park is located about a mile west of town. Liberty celebrates its Heritage Days Festival during the first weekend of each May. Air Cruisers manufacturing plant is located in Liberty. Owned by

Zodiac Aerospace Zodiac Aerospace was a French aerospace group, active from 1896 to 2018, that supplied systems and equipment for aircraft. In October 2018, it was acquired by French aerospace and defense company Safran. History Aeronautic foundations (1896 ...

, the plant produces evacuation slides, life rafts, and life vests for the aviation industry. Eleven sites in or near Liberty are listed 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 ...

History

Liberty was incorporated on February 24, 1809. The Amite County Courthouse in Liberty is the oldest in Mississippi. Erected in 1839, the courthouse was enlarged and modernized in 1936. It is listed on the

. The Amite Female Seminary (also known as the 'Little Red Schoolhouse'), built in 1853, was a girls finishing school located in Liberty. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, in the spring of 1863, Federal troops under the command of Colonel Benjamin Grierson, a former music teacher, burned the school, but spared the school's music building. The Federal commander permitted musical instruments to be removed, and was prepared to give the order to torch the building, when he recognized the music school's director, Rev. Milton Shirk, as a former classmate from New York. The two-story, two-room music building survives to this day on Mississippi Highway 569, and is listed on the

Gail Borden Gail Borden Jr. (November 9, 1801 – January 11, 1874) was an American inventor and manufacturing pioneer. He was born in New York state and settled in Texas in 1829 (then part of Mexico), where he worked as a land surveyor, newspaper publish ...

, who developed a process in the early 1850s for condensing milk and founded the New York Condensed Milk Company (later known as Borden Inc., lived in Liberty from 1822 to 1829. Between 1904 and 1921, a branch of the

Liberty–White Railroad The Liberty–White Railroad was chartered on December 22, 1902, and acquired the narrow gauge logging railroad of the J.J. White Lumber Company running southwest from McComb, Mississippi. A branch of this logging railroad was converted to and ...

, a narrow-gauge logging rail line serving the White Lumber Company, ran between

and Liberty. During the Civil Rights Movement, in September 1961, Herbert Lee, an African-American dairy farmer and member of NAACP, was murdered in Liberty at the Westbrook Cotton Gin by

E.H. Hurst Eugene Hunter Hurst Jr. (October 21, 1908 – April 20, 1990) was an American dairy farmer and politician from Amite County, Mississippi. Elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives for a single term in 1959, Hurst suppo ...

, a white state legislator. Lee had attended voter registration classes and volunteered to try to register to vote, Witnesses to the killing were intimidated by armed white men in the courtroom to support Hurst's claim of self-defense, and he was released without charges.

Louis Allen Louis Allen (April 25, 1919 – January 31, 1964) was an African-American logger in Liberty, Mississippi, who was shot and killed on his land during the civil rights era. He had previously tried to register to vote and had allegedly talked to fe ...

, a married African-American landowner with a logging business, reported the truth about the crime to federal officials while seeking protection for testimony. He did not get protection. He suffered economic blackmail, arrests and harassment, and was killed in January 1964. Liberty was the location of the fourth-wettest tropical cyclone in Mississippi in 2001;

Tropical Storm Allison Tropical Storm Allison was a tropical cyclone that devastated southeast Texas in June 2001. An arguable example of the " brown ocean effect", Allison lasted unusually long for a June storm, remaining tropical and subtropical for 16 days, most o ...

dropped of precipitation.

Liberty, Texas Liberty is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, within Liberty County. The population was 8,279 at the 2020 census. It serves as the county seat of Liberty County. Liberty is the third oldest city in the state—established in 1831 on the ...

is thought to have been named after this town, as numerous families from Amite County moved west in the 1820s to settle in the Atascosito district north-east of

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the town covers an area of , of which , or 0.03%, is water.

Demographics

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 560 people, 282 households, and 184 families residing in the town.

Education

The town of Liberty is served by the

Amite County School District The Amite County School District (ACSD) is a public school district based in Liberty, Mississippi (USA). The district's boundaries parallel those of Amite County. In addition to Liberty, the district includes Gloster and the Amite County port ...

. Liberty is also the home of Amite School Center, a K-12 education institution that is a member of the

Mississippi Association of Independent Schools The Midsouth Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) is a consortium of schools in Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. It is responsible for accreditation of its member private schools as well as governing athletic competition for i ...

. The town manages a state property named the Ethel Stratton Vance Natural Area, just west of town, which is often used for educational purposes and is home to sports fields, camping areas, a large equestrian center, and over 200 acres of biologically diverse ravines, beaver impoundments, and bottomland hardwood forest along the West Fork

Amite River The Amite River () is a tributary of Lake Maurepas in Mississippi and Louisiana in the United States. It is about long. It starts as two forks in southwestern Mississippi and flows south through Louisiana, passing Greater Baton Rouge, Louisia ...

. File:Amite Female Seminary, commonly known as the "Little Red Schoolhouse.jpg, Amite Female Seminary, commonly known as the "Little Red Schoolhouse," established in 1853 and spared during the Civil War File:Liberty drug store 2018.jpg, Liberty (

Rexall Rexall was a chain of American drugstores, and the name of their store-branded products. The stores, having roots in the federation of United Drug Stores starting in 1903, licensed the Rexall brand name to as many as 12,000 drug stores across t ...

)

Drug Store A pharmacy (also called drugstore in American English or community pharmacy or chemist in Commonwealth English) is a premises which provides pharmaceutical drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmacist oversees the fulfillment of ...

, Main Street

Notable people

, property owner and logger * T. F. Badon, member of the

Mississippi House of Representatives The Mississippi House of Representatives is the lower house of the Mississippi Legislature, the lawmaking body of the U.S. state of Mississippi. According to the state constitution of 1890, it is to comprise no more than 122 members elected for ...

from 1952 to 1956 * Carl Elkanah Bates, President of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1970-1972Saxon, W. 200
The Rev. Carl Elkanah Bates, 85, Former Southern Baptist Leader
''The New York Times'', Jan. 10, 2000, Sec. B, p. 7. * L. C. Bates, African-American civil rights activist and the husband of Daisy Bates. *

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...

, former

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

offensive line In gridiron football, a lineman is a player who specializes in play at the line of scrimmage. The linemen of the team currently in possession of the ball are the offensive line (OL), while linemen on the opposing team are the defensive line ( ...

man * Will D. Campbell, minister, author, and civil rights activist *

Jerry Clower Howard Gerald "Jerry" Clower (September 28, 1926 – August 24, 1998) was an American stand-up comedian. Born and raised in the state of Mississippi, Clower was best known for his stories of the rural South and was given the nickname "The Mouth o ...

, country comedian *

E. H. Hurst Eugene Hunter Hurst Jr. (October 21, 1908 – April 20, 1990) was an American dairy farmer and politician from Amite County, Mississippi, Amite County, Mississippi. Elected as a Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to the Mississippi Hous ...

, member of the

* Gabe Jackson, American football player for the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...

Las Vegas Raiders The Las Vegas Raiders are a professional American football team based in the Las Vegas Valley, Las Vegas metropolitan area. The Raiders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West ...

and

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West division. The club entered the NFL a ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

(NFL) * Herbert Lee, civil rights activist * William F. Love, U.S. Representative from Mississippi * Glenn Moore, softball coach * Clyde V. Ratcliff, member of the Louisiana Senate from 1944 to 1948, was born in Liberty in 1879 * Andy Rodgers, (March 14, 1922 – August 14, 2004) was a Delta blues harmonicist, guitarist, singer and songwriter born nearby Liberty in 1922 *

Jamie Lynn Spears Jamie Lynn Marie Spears (born April 4, 1991) is an American actress and singer. Spears began her career as a child actress on '' All That'' and had her breakthrough role when she played Zoey Brooks on the Nickelodeon teen sitcom '' Zoey 101'' ...

, actress and singer * George H. Tichenor, inventor of an antiseptic, briefly lived and married in Liberty

References

External links

Liberty website
{{authority control Cities in Mississippi Towns in Amite County, Mississippi Cities in Amite County, Mississippi Towns in Mississippi County seats in Mississippi Towns in McComb micropolitan area