McComb was founded in 1872 after Henry Simpson McComb of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad, a predecessor of the Illinois Central Railroad (now part of the Canadian National Railway), decided to move the railroad's maintenance shops away from New Orleans, Louisiana, to avoid the attractions of that city's bars.
The railroad purchased land in Pike County. Three nearby communities, Elizabethtown, Burglund, and Harveytown, agreed to consolidate to form this town. Main Street developed with the downtown's shops, attractions, and business.
20th century
The rail center in McComb was one of flashpoints in the violent Illinois Central shopmen's strike of 1911. Riots took place here that resulted in many injuries, at least three black strikebreakers killed, and authorities bringing in state militia to suppress the emergency soon after the strike started on September 30.[3]
During the 1960s, McComb and nearby areas were the sites of extreme violence by KKK and other white supremacist opponents to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1961, SNCC conducted its first voter registration project in Mississippi in this city. White officials and local KKK members countered it with violence and intimidation to suppress black voters.
In 1961, Brenda Travis, Robert Talbert, and Ike Lewis were arrested for staging a sit in at a Greyhound station. They were charged with trespassing and kept in jail for 28 days. Following their release, Travis was expelled from school. In response to the expulsion and the murder of Herbert Lee, 115 students staged a walk out on October 4, 1961, known as the Burglund High School Walk Out. At the walk out, many students were beaten by the police and arrested. Students continued protesting by refusing to return to school until Travis was allowed to reenroll. As a result, they too were expelled. The 16 seniors who participated were unable to graduate. Travis' fate for participating in the march was more serious. Travis was arrested, again, and sent to a state juvenile facility without a trial. After 6+1⁄2 months, Travis was released by the governor and exiled from Mississippi.[4][5][6]
After whites severely beat several staff members, staff members being jailed for their involvement with the walkout, and receiving backlash from the community for putting students on the "frontlines", SNCC pulled out of the region in early 1962. They moved north in Mississippi to work in slightly less dangerous conditions.[7]
In 1964, civil rights activists began the Mississippi Project and what would be called Freedom Summer, with teams returning to southwest Mississippi. They sang, "We'll Never Turn Back." SNCC members of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) returned to McComb in mid-July 1964 to work on voter registration. From late August 1964 through September, after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, McComb was the site of eleven bombings directed against African Americans.[8]Malcolm Boyd took part of COFO's Freedom House as a member of a clerical delegation to assist African-American voter registration.
The following summer, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 authorizing federal oversight and enforcement to enable blacks to register and vote again in the South. In Mississippi, most blacks had been disenfranchised since 1890. Even with enforcement, it took time to overcome local white resistance to black voting.
On October 20, 1977, a chartered plane carrying members and crew of rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in a swamp near McComb, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, Steve's sister Cassie (a backup singer), road manager Dean Kilpatrick, as well as both pilots.
In 2006, Zach Patterson was elected as McComb's first African American mayor.[9]
In 2018, voters in the city of McComb elected Quordiniah Lockley as mayor, and for the first time elected a city board consisting of an African American majority.[10][11]
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 11.6 square miles (30 km2), of which 11.6 square miles (30 km2) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km2) (0.54%) is water.
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 12,413 people, 4,478 households, and 2,210 families residing in the city.
Arts and culture
An annual Earth Day Fest organized by Pike School of Art – Mississippi is celebrated in April on the Saturday of or following Earth Day. The Summit Street Unity Festival is celebrated annually on the third Saturday in October. The Black History Gallery annually celebrates Juneteenth.[17][18][19]
Education
The City of McComb is served by the McComb School District. There are 7 schools in the district, Otken Elementary, Kennedy Early Childhood Center, Higgins Middle School, Denman Jr. High School, McComb High School, Business & Technology Center, and Summit Academy. The McComb and the surrounding Pike County area has three separate school districts, one private school, and a community college in the northern part of the county.
St. Alphonsus Catholic Church is located in McComb and provided classes kindergarten through seventh grade until the school closed in 2014. McComb is also the location of Parklane Academy, a K4 through 12th grade private college preparatory school. It is the first of its kind in the Pike County Area. It is located in the central McComb region. Southwest Mississippi Community College is located seven miles north of McComb, and northeast of Summit, MS. McComb High School is one of the 100 National Model Schools.
^"Bio page". Vasti Jackson. July 13, 2014. Retrieved December 28, 2016.
^"Va. theologian Albert Mollegen dies at Age 77". Washington Post. Washington, DC. January 23, 1984. Retrieved November 7, 2022. Dr. Mollegen was a widely-known apologist for classical Christianity to modern intellectuals and had lectured widely on campuses.
^"Albert Theodore Mollegen". The Episcopal Church. Retrieved November 7, 2022. He was most noted as an apologist for liberal evangelicalism, and in 1947 he founded an association called Christianity and Modern Man.
