Confederate soldier statue on Madison Parish Courthouse lawnChristian crosses off U.S. Highway 65 in south Madison Parish
Madison Parish (French: Paroisse de Madison) is a parish located on the northeastern border of the U.S. state of Louisiana, in the delta lowlands along the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,017.[1] Its parish seat is Tallulah.[2] The parish was formed in 1839.[3]
With a history of cotton plantations and pecan farms, the parish economy continues to be primarily agricultural. It has a majority African-American population. For years a ferry connected Delta, Louisiana (and traffic from the parish) to Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Vicksburg Bridge now carries U.S. Route 80 and Interstate 20 across the river into Madison Parish.
James Madison, namesake of Madison Parish, Louisiana
The parish is named for former U.S. PresidentJames Madison.[4] As was typical of northern areas of Louisiana, and especially along the Mississippi River, it was developed for cotton agriculture on large plantations worked by large groups of enslaved African Americans.
Following the Reconstruction era and during the Jim Crow era, white Democrats across the state violently suppressed black voting, which was for Republican candidates, and civil rights. Twelve blacks were lynched in Madison Parish from 1877 to 1950, most near the turn of the 20th century when social and economic tensions were the highest.[5] In addition, in July 1899 five immigrant Sicilian grocers were lynched by whites in Tallulah, the parish seat, for failing to observe Jim Crow customs of serving whites before blacks and because they were competing with locals with their stores.[6]
Civil rights legislation in 1965 enabled more African Americans to exercise their constitutional rights to register and vote in Madison Parish, and they began to elect candidates of their choice to local offices. In 1969 Zelma Wyche was elected as Police Chief of Tallulah. In 1974 Adell Williams was elected as mayor, the first African American to fill this position.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the parish has a total area of 651 square miles (1,690 km2), of which 624 square miles (1,620 km2) is land and 26 square miles (67 km2) (4.1%) is water.[7]
Because of limited job opportunities as agriculture has mechanized and the Chicago Lumber Mill closed, the parish population has declined overall by about one-third since its peak in 1980. Numerous African Americans left during the first half of the 20th century in the Great Migration to escape the violence and oppression of Jim Crow; they moved to the North and West.
U.S. Decennial Census[8] 1790-1960[9] 1900-1990[10] 1990-2000[11] 2010[12]
2020 census
Madison Parish, Louisiana – Racial and ethnic composition 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 may be of any race.
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 10,017 people, 3,832 households, and 2,443 families residing in the parish.
Politics
With its majority-black population, Madison Parish in the 21st century has become a stronghold of support for the Democratic Party. Prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when the state unconstitutionally prevented blacks from voting, the white Madison Parish voters in 1962 supported the Republican nominee Taylor W. O'Hearn for the US Senate; he lost to powerful Democratic incumbent Russell B. Long. O'Hearn polled 58.7 percent among whites in Madison Parish.[16] He later was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives from Caddo Parish, also in the northern part of the state.
During the 1970s and 1980s, conservative white voters in Louisiana and other southern states began to shift to supporting Republican presidential candidates, creating a more competitive system than the Solid South. Since the civil rights era, most African Americans in the South have supported Democratic candidates, as the national party supported their drive to exercise constitutional rights as citizens, even though most Southern Democrats remained vehemently opposed to civil rights. In 1988, GovernorMichael Dukakis of Massachusetts won in Madison Parish, with 2,416 votes (49.2 percent) compared to Republican Vice PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush, who finished in the presidential contest with 2,334 ballots (47.5 percent).[17]
In 2008, the Democrat Barack Obama of Illinois received 3,100 votes (58.5 percent) in Madison Parish to 2,152 (40.6 percent) for the Republican U.S. SenatorJohn McCain of Arizona.[18] In 2012, Madison Parish gave President Obama 3,154 votes (60.8 percent) to Mitt Romney's 2,000 ballots (38.6 percent), 152 fewer votes than McCain had received four years earlier.[19]
United States presidential election results for Madison Parish, Louisiana[20]
The private Lasalle Management firm operates the Madison Parish Correctional Center and Louisiana Correction Transitional Center for Women (CTCW), both located in Tallulah.