Lowndes County, Alabama
| Lowndes County, Alabama | |
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Lowndes County Courthouse in Hayneville
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 Location in the U.S. state of Alabama |
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 Alabama's location in the U.S. |
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| Founded | January 20, 1830 |
| Named for | William Lowndes |
| Seat | Hayneville |
| Largest town | Fort Deposit |
| Area | |
| • Total | 725 sq mi (1,878 km2) |
| • Land | 716 sq mi (1,854 km2) |
| • Water | 9.2 sq mi (24 km2), 1.3% |
| Population (est.) | |
| • (2015) | 10,458 |
| • Density | 16/sq mi (6/km²) |
| Congressional district | 7th |
| Time zone | Central: UTC-6/-5 |
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Footnotes:
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Footnotes:
Lowndes County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,299. Its county seat is Hayneville. The county is named in honor of William Lowndes, a member of the United States Congress from South Carolina.
Lowndes County is part of the Montgomery, Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Lowndes County was formed from Montgomery, Dallas and Butler counties, by an act of the Alabama General Assembly on January 20, 1830. The county is named for South Carolina statesman William Lowndes.
Following Reconstruction and years in which blacks continued to be elected to local office, the white-Democrat dominated state legislature gained passage of a new constitution in 1901 that effectively disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites. Requirements were added for payment of a cumulative poll tax before registering to vote, difficult for poor people to manage; and literacy tests (with a provision for a grandfather clause to exempt illiterate white voters from being excluded.) The number of black voters fell dramatically, as did the number of poor white voters.
From the end of the 19th through the early decades of the 20th centuries, organized white violence increased against blacks, with 14 lynchings recorded in the county, the sixth highest total in the state, which ranks among the most violent in the South. Most victims were black men, subjected to white extra-legal efforts to maintain white supremacy by racial terrorism. Seven of these murders of blacks were committed in Letohatchee; five in 1900 and two in 1917. This is an unincorporated community south of Montgomery. In 1900 mobs killed a black man accused of killing a white man. When local black resident Jim Cross objected, he was killed, too, at his house, followed by his wife, son and daughter. In 1917 two black brothers were killed by a white mob for alleged insolence to a white farmer on the road. On July 31, 2016, a historical marker was erected here by the Equal Justice Initiative to commemorate these extrajudicial executions.
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