History
European settlement to present
The parish is named for former U.S. President James 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. In 1932 a local news writer stated, "Madison still has plantations. They have not vanished entirely. Good roads dot the parish and some owners live in Tallulah, using automobiles to supervise their extensive holdings. When extra help is needed, trucks are used to carry the negroes back and forth." [5]
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. [6] 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. [7]
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.
Demographics
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.
Historical population| Census | Pop. | Note | %± |
|---|
| 1840 | 5,142 | | — |
|---|
| 1850 | 8,773 | | 70.6% |
|---|
| 1860 | 14,133 | | 61.1% |
|---|
| 1870 | 8,600 | | −39.1% |
|---|
| 1880 | 13,906 | | 61.7% |
|---|
| 1890 | 14,135 | | 1.6% |
|---|
| 1900 | 12,322 | | −12.8% |
|---|
| 1910 | 10,676 | | −13.4% |
|---|
| 1920 | 10,829 | | 1.4% |
|---|
| 1930 | 14,829 | | 36.9% |
|---|
| 1940 | 18,443 | | 24.4% |
|---|
| 1950 | 17,451 | | −5.4% |
|---|
| 1960 | 16,444 | | −5.8% |
|---|
| 1970 | 15,065 | | −8.4% |
|---|
| 1980 | 15,975 | | 6.0% |
|---|
| 1990 | 12,463 | | −22.0% |
|---|
| 2000 | 13,728 | | 10.2% |
|---|
| 2010 | 12,093 | | −11.9% |
|---|
| 2020 | 10,017 | | −17.2% |
|---|
|
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.| Race / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic) | Pop 1980 [14] | Pop 1990 [15] | Pop 2000 [16] | Pop 2010 [17] | Pop 2020 [18] | % 1980 | % 1990 | % 2000 | % 2010 | % 2020 |
|---|
| White alone (NH) | 6,353 | 4,917 | 5,087 | 4,396 | 3,414 | 39.77% | 39.45% | 37.06% | 36.35% | 34.08% |
| Black or African American alone (NH) | 9,293 | 7,390 | 8,259 | 7,357 | 6,173 | 58.17% | 59.30% | 60.16% | 60.84% | 61.63% |
| Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH) | 5 | 15 | 18 | 23 | 27 | 0.03% | 0.12% | 0.13% | 0.19% | 0.27% |
| Asian alone (NH) | 15 | 8 | 21 | 26 | 6 | 0.09% | 0.06% | 0.15% | 0.22% | 0.06% |
| Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH) | x [19] | x [20] | 2 | 0 | 5 | x | x | 0.01% | 0.00% | 0.05% |
| Other race alone (NH) | 16 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 0.10% | 0.06% | 0.01% | 0.07% | 0.04% |
| Mixed race or Multiracial (NH) | x [21] | x [22] | 51 | 95 | 184 | x | x | 0.37% | 0.79% | 1.84% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 293 | 126 | 288 | 188 | 204 | 1.83% | 1.01% | 2.10% | 1.55% | 2.04% |
| Total | 15,975 | 12,463 | 13,728 | 12,093 | 10,017 | 100.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% |
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 10,017 people, 3,832 households, and 2,443 families residing in the parish.
Out of Louisiana's 64 parishes, it is one of six that have an African-American Majority (2020).
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. [23] 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, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts won in Madison Parish, with 2,416 votes (49.2 percent) compared to Republican Vice President George H. W. Bush, who finished in the presidential contest with 2,334 ballots (47.5 percent). [24]
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. Senator John McCain of Arizona. [25] 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. [26]
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