Jonesboro, Louisiana

Last updated

Jonesboro, Louisiana
Town of Jonesboro
Jonesboro, LA, City Hall MVI 2685.jpg
Jonesboro City Hall
Jackson Parish Louisiana Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Jonesboro Highlighted.svg
Location of Jonesboro in Jackson Parish, Louisiana
USA Louisiana location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Jonesboro
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Jonesboro
Coordinates: 32°14′28″N92°42′57″W / 32.24111°N 92.71583°W / 32.24111; -92.71583
CountryFlag of the United States.svg  United States
StateFlag of Louisiana.svg  Louisiana
Parish Jackson
Government
  MayorMayor-James "Spike" Harris (D)


(unseated Democrat Leslie C. Thompson December 8, 2022)
Area
[1]
  Total4.90 sq mi (12.70 km2)
  Land4.85 sq mi (12.55 km2)
  Water0.06 sq mi (0.15 km2)
Population
 (2020)
  Total4,106
  Density847.12/sq mi (327.09/km2)
Time zone UTC-6 (CST)
  Summer (DST) UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP Code
71251
Area code 318
FIPS code 22-38670
Website www.jonesborola.net
Jimmie Davis Boulevard extends through downtown. Downtown Jonesboro, LA, along the Jimmie Davis Blvd MVI 2684.jpg
Jimmie Davis Boulevard extends through downtown.
Jonesboro State Bank is located downtown. Jonesboro State Bank.jpg
Jonesboro State Bank is located downtown.
The First Baptist Church of Jonesboro is located at the intersection of Jimmie Davis Boulevard and South Cooper Avenue. First Baptist Church of Jonesboro, LA MVI 2693.jpg
The First Baptist Church of Jonesboro is located at the intersection of Jimmie Davis Boulevard and South Cooper Avenue.
Another view of downtown Jonesboro on the Jimmie Davis Boulevard facing east MVI 2682 Another street scene in Jonesboro.jpg
Another view of downtown Jonesboro on the Jimmie Davis Boulevard facing east
Garden of Memories is located on the Castor Highway outside Jonesboro. MVI 2697 Garden of Memories in Jonesboro, LA.jpg
Garden of Memories is located on the Castor Highway outside Jonesboro.

Jonesboro is a town in, and the parish seat of, Jackson Parish in the northern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana. [2] The population was 4,106 in 2020. [3]

Contents

History

Founded on January 10, 1860, by Joseph Jones and his wife, Sarah Pankey Jones, as a small family farm, Jonesboro is now a small industrial mill town. Originally founded as "Macedonia," the small town's name changed to Jonesboro on January 16, 1901, after the United States Post Office Department approved the change and became the seat of government for Jackson Parish on March 15, 1911, following a parish-wide referendum. [4] Jonesboro remains the parish's agricultural, industrial, economic, and governmental center.

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, whites violently resisted African-American efforts to gain their constitutional rights as citizens, even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Ku Klux Klan, which was active in the area, conducted what was called a "reign of terror" in 1964, including harassment of activists, "the burning of crosses on the lawns of African-American voters," murder, and destroying five black churches by fire, as well as their Masonic hall, and a Baptist center. [5] [6]

In November 1964, Earnest "Chilly Willy" Thomas and Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick (the latter ordained that year as a minister of the Church of God in Christ), founded the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Jonesboro. It was an armed self-defense group, largely made up of men who were World War II and the Korean War veterans. At night, they conducted regular patrols of the city's black community which occupied an area known as "the Quarters". [6] [5] They protected civil rights activists and their families during and outside demonstrations. At the request of activists in Bogalusa, another mill town where blacks were under pressure from violent whites, Thomas and Kirkpatrick helped found an affiliated chapter in that city. [6] Ultimately there were 21 chapters in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, operating through 1968. In Jonesboro, the Deacons achieved some changes, such as integrating parks and a swimming pool. Activists achieved more after congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and their entry into politics.

Geography

Jonesboro is in southwestern Jackson Parish. [7] U.S. Route 167 passes through the town's northern and eastern sides, leading north 22 miles (35 km) to Ruston and south 23 miles (37 km) to Winnfield. Louisiana Highway 4 passes through the center of Jonesboro, leading east 17 miles (27 km) to Chatham and west 19 miles (31 km) to Lucky.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Jonesboro has an area of 4.9 square miles (12.7 km2), of which 4.8 square miles (12.5 km2) are land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km2), or 1.17%, are water. [8] Jonesboro water bodies drain north to the Little Dugdemona River, which turns southwest and forms the southward-flowing Dugdemona River.

Climate

The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Jonesboro has a humid subtropical climate, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps. [9]

Demographics

Historical population
CensusPop.Note
1910 1,134
1920 837−26.2%
1930 1,949132.9%
1940 2,63935.4%
1950 3,09717.4%
1960 3,84824.2%
1970 5,07231.8%
1980 5,061−0.2%
1990 4,305−14.9%
2000 3,914−9.1%
2010 4,70420.2%
2020 4,106−12.7%
U.S. Decennial Census [10]
Jonesboro racial composition as of 2020 [3]
RaceNumberPercentage
White (non-Hispanic)1,53137.29%
Black or African American (non-Hispanic)2,06650.32%
Native American 30.07%
Asian 1022.48%
Pacific Islander 20.05%
Other/Mixed 1353.29%
Hispanic or Latino 2686.5%

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 4,106 people, 1,374 households, and 754 families residing in the town.

Government

The city has a mayor-council form of government; all persons are elected. Independent Dr. James Spoke Harris was inaugurated on December 31, 2022 Democrat James E. Bradford was inaugurated on December 29, 2014. [11]

The previous mayor, Leslie Cornell Thompson, was suspended from office in September 2013 after being convicted of malfeasance in office. As of 2013, Jonesboro had not had a budget since 2008. His wife, Yoshi Chambers Thompson, was initially appointed by the city council to succeed him as interim mayor. Her legitimacy was questioned by Kenneth David Folden, the fiscal administrator appointed by the state the day after Thompson's conviction to bring city finances back into order. Tammy Sheridan Lee, the Monroe city judge who administered the oath to Yoshi Thompson, has withdrawn the authorization. Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is reviewing the legality of the situation. [12]

Meanwhile, Judge James Cecil "Jimmy" Teat of the Louisiana 2nd Judicial District Court in Jonesboro ruled that Thompson had violated the conditions of his bond through continued interference in municipal business. Judge Teat ordered Thompson to be incarcerated in the Jackson Parish Correctional Center until his sentencing on the malfeasance charges. [12]

A Democrat, Thompson had been elected mayor on October 2, 2010, with 82votes 4 (57.6 percent) to the Republican candidate, Freddie Brown's, 607 (42.4 percent). [13]

On October 17, 2013, based on the conviction of malfeasance, Judge Teat sentenced Mayor Thompson to six years of hard labor, large fines, $51,000 in restitution to the city of Jonesboro, five years' suspended sentence, and five years of supervised probation. Thompson will remain incarcerated pending appeal. [14]

In the runoff election for mayor held on December 8, 2018, Thompson unseated Bradford.

Arts and culture

Jonesboro is the home of "Christmas Wonderland in the Pines", a local festival held annually. It begins the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day and continues through December.[ citation needed ]

Jonesboro also has a "Sunshine Festival" in the summer, featuring antique cars and tractors, food, and games.

Infrastructure

Transportation

U.S. Highway 167 passes by Jackson, which is located twenty-four miles south of Ruston. SR 4 joins Highway 167 at Jonesboro, which is in the southwestern portion of Jackson Parish.

Immigration Detention

The Jackson Parish Correctional Center is an ICE detention facility located in Jonesboro. It is a medium security detention center with a capacity of 1,252. [15]

Education

The Jackson Parish School Board oversees the public school system within Jonesboro from a parish-level. [16]

Zoned schools include:

The town is also home to the Louisiana Delta Community College Jonesboro campus, which offers courses in welding, business administration, and various general requirement courses. [20]

Notable people

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madison Parish, Louisiana</span> Parish in Louisiana, United States

Madison Parish 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. Its parish seat is Tallulah. The parish was formed in 1839.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackson Parish, Louisiana</span> Parish in Louisiana, United States

Jackson Parish is a parish in the northern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 15,031. The parish seat is Jonesboro. The parish was formed in 1845 from parts of Claiborne, Ouachita, and Union Parishes. In the twentieth century, this part of the state had several small industrial mill towns, such as Jonesboro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newport, Arkansas</span> City in Arkansas, United States

Newport is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Arkansas, United States located on the White River, 84 miles (135 km) northeast of Little Rock. The population was 7,879 at the 2010 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DeQuincy, Louisiana</span> City in Louisiana, United States

DeQuincy is the northernmost city in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 3,235 at the 2010 census. DeQuincy is part of the Lake Charles metropolitan statistical area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haynesville, Louisiana</span> Town in Louisiana, United States

Haynesville is a town in northern Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, United States, located just south of the Arkansas border. The population was 2,039 in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homer, Louisiana</span> Town in Louisiana, United States

Homer is a town in and the parish seat of Claiborne Parish in northern Louisiana, United States. Named for the Greek poet Homer, the town was laid out around the Courthouse Square in 1850 by Frank Vaughn. The present-day brick courthouse, built in the Greek Revival style of architecture, is one of only four pre-Civil War courthouses in Louisiana still in use. The building, completed in 1860, was accepted by the Claiborne Parish Police Jury on July 20, 1861, at a cost of $12,304.36, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The other courthouses are in St. Francisville, St. Martinville and Thibodaux.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackson, Louisiana</span> Town in Louisiana, United States

Jackson is a town in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 3,842 at the 2010 U.S. census, down from 4,130 in 2000; the 2020 population estimates program determined Jackson had a population of 3,707. It is part of the Baton Rouge metropolitan statistical area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tallulah, Louisiana</span> City in Louisiana, United States

Tallulah is a city in, and the parish seat of, Madison Parish in northeastern Louisiana, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,286, down from 7,335 in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morganza, Louisiana</span> Village in Louisiana, United States

Morganza is an incorporated village near the Mississippi River in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 610 at the 2010 census, down from 659 in 2000. As of 2020 the population was 525. It is part of the Baton Rouge metropolitan statistical area. The village's zip code is 70759. The Morganza Spillway, a flood control structure between the Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya Basin, is located nearby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pineville, Louisiana</span> City in Louisiana, United States

Pineville is a city in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is located across the Red River from the larger Alexandria, and is part of the Alexandria Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 14,555 at the 2010 census. It had been 13,829 in 2000; population hence grew by 5 percent over the preceding decade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coushatta, Louisiana</span> Town in Louisiana, United States

Coushatta is a town in, and the parish seat of, rural Red River Parish in north Louisiana, United States. It is situated on the east bank of the Red River. The community is approximately 45 miles south of Shreveport on U.S. Highway 71. The population, 2,299 at the 2000 census, is nearly two-thirds African American, most with long family histories in the area. The 2010 census, however, reported 1,964 residents, a decline of 335 persons, or nearly 15 percent during the course of the preceding decade. In 2020, its population was 1,752. The city is named after the Coushatta, a Native American nation indigenous to the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hammond, Louisiana</span> City in Louisiana, US

Hammond is the largest city in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, United States, located 45 miles (72 km) east of Baton Rouge and 45 miles (72 km) northwest of New Orleans. Its population was 20,019 in the 2010 U.S. census, and 21,359 at the 2020 population estimates program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waterproof, Louisiana</span> Village in Louisiana, United States

Waterproof is a village in Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana, United States with a population of 688 as of the 2010 census. The village in 2010 was 91.7 percent African American. Some 24 percent of Waterproof residents in 2010 were aged sixty or above.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bogalusa, Louisiana</span> City in Louisiana, United States

Bogalusa is a city in Washington Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 12,232 at the 2010 census. In the 2020 census the city reported a population of 10,659. It is the principal city of the Bogalusa Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Washington Parish and is also part of the larger New Orleans–Metairie–Hammond combined statistical area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natchez, Mississippi</span> City in Mississippi, United States

Natchez is the only city in and the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. It has a total population of 14,520. Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, Natchez was a prominent city in the antebellum years, a center of cotton planters and Mississippi River trade.

The Deacons for Defense and Justice was an armed African-American self-defense group founded in November 1964, during the civil rights era in the United States, in the mill town of Jonesboro, Louisiana. On February 21, 1965—the day of Malcolm X's assassination—the first affiliated chapter was founded in Bogalusa, Louisiana, followed by a total of 20 other chapters in this state, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. It was intended to protect civil rights activists and their families, threatened both by white vigilantes and discriminatory treatment by police under Jim Crow laws. The Bogalusa chapter gained national attention during the summer of 1965 in its violent struggles with the Ku Klux Klan.

Deacons for Defense is a 2003 American television drama film directed by Bill Duke. The television film stars Forest Whitaker, Christopher Britton, Ossie Davis, Jonathan Silverman, Adam Weiner, and Marcus Johnson. Based on a story by Michael D'Antonio, the teleplay was written by Richard Wesley and Frank Military.

Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick (1933–1986) was an African-American musician, civil rights activist, and minister from Haynesville, Louisiana. In late 1964 he was a co-founder of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, an armed black self-defense group, in the small industrial mill town of Jonesboro, Louisiana, to protect the black community against white violence. Together with Earnest "Chilly Willy" Thomas, Kirkpatrick also founded Deacons chapters in other cities of Louisiana, and in Mississippi and Alabama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert "Bob" Hicks House</span> Historic house in Louisiana, United States

The Robert Hicks House, in Bogalusa, Louisiana, was the home from 1965 to 1969 of civil rights leader Bob Hicks (1929–2010) and the site of civil rights meetings in the city. The house, built in the early 1950s, is a one-story 1,590 sq ft (148 m2) building with similarities to 1950s ranch houses and 1930s bungalows. It has weatherboard siding and is built on concrete piers.

Robert Hicks was a prominent leader in Bogalusa, Louisiana during the Civil Rights Movement, whose activism helped put an end to segregation and discriminatory practices in education, housing, employment, public accommodations and healthcare. Best known for his leading role in founding the Bogalusa chapter of The Deacons for Defense and Justice, an armed African-American self-defense group, Hicks led daily protests on the streets of Jim Crow-era Bogalusa. He served as president and later Vice President of the Bogalusa Civic and Voters League, and the plaintiff in a series of civil rights lawsuits which achieved groundbreaking legal victories nationwide.

References

  1. "2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 20, 2022.
  2. "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Archived from the original on May 31, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  3. 1 2 "Explore Census Data". data.census.gov. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  4. https://jonesborola.org/about-us
  5. 1 2 James-Wilson, Sonia (2004). "Understanding Self-Defense in the Civil Rights Movement Through Visual Arts" (PDF). In Menkart, Deborah; Murray, Alana D.; View (eds.). Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching: A Resource Guide for K-12 Classrooms (1st ed.). Washington, D.C: Teaching for Change and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. ISBN   9781878554185. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 22, 2012. Retrieved May 18, 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 Hill, Lance E. (2004). The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement (1 ed.). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN   9780807828472.[ page needed ]
  7. "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. February 12, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
  8. "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Census Summary File 1 (G001): Jonesboro town, Louisiana". American Factfinder. U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on February 13, 2020. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  9. Climate Summary for Jonesboro, Louisiana
  10. "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  11. https://jonesborola.org/mayor-james-bradford
  12. 1 2 Cole Avery (September 24, 2013). "Suspended Jonesboro mayor's bond revoked". Monroe News-Star. Archived from the original on September 28, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2013.
  13. "Louisiana primary el3ection returns, October 2, 2010". staticresults.sos.la.gov. Retrieved September 25, 2013.
  14. "Suspended Jonesboro mayor sentenced to 6 years". Alexandria Daily Town Talk . October 18, 2013. Retrieved October 18, 2013.[ permanent dead link ]
  15. "Locations Jackson Parish Correctional Center". LaSalle Corrections. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  16. https://www.jpsb.us
  17. https://jhes.jpsb.us
  18. https://jhms.jpsb.us
  19. https://jhhs.jpsb.us
  20. "Campuses: Jonesboro".
  21. "John Garlington". databaseFootball.com. Archived from the original on October 11, 2012. Retrieved November 26, 2012.

Further reading