Quitman County, Mississippi

Quitman County Education, Geography, and History

Quitman County is a county located in the state of Mississippi. Based on the 2010 census, the population was 8,223, making it the fifth-least populous county in Mississippi. Its county seat is Marks. The county is named after John A. Quitman, Governor of Mississippi from 1835 to 1836 and from 1850 to 1851.

Quitman County is located in the Mississippi Delta region of Mississippi.

Etymology - Origin of Quitman County Name

Quitman is named for Governor of Mississippi John A. Quitman. John Anthony Quitman (b. September 1, 1799, Rhinebeck, New York - July 17, 1858) was an American politician and soldier. He served as Governor of Mississippi from 1835 to 1836 as a Whig and again from 1850 to 1851 as a Democrat.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: CensusBureau Quick Facts

Quitman County History

Quitman County was established February 1, 1877, during the administration of Gov. John M. Stone and was named for John A. Quitman. The county has a land surface of 395 square miles. It was carved from the counties of Panola, Coahoma, Tunica and Tallahatchie. The act creating the county directed that the seat of justice be located by the Board of Supervisors at a point on the west side of Coldwater River and that it be called Belen. The place was named after the battle ground where General Quitman fought in the Mexican War. But Belen was far to the west of Quitman County, and when the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad avoided the old county seat, in the early '90s, and passed through the center of the county, the seat of justice was transferred to Marks, the current county seat.

The old boundary line between the Choctaw and Chickasaw cessions cuts across the northeast corner of Quitman County and for a short distance forms its boundary. The county lies entirely within the Mississippi and Yazoo delta region, in the northwestern part of the State, is a narrow, irregular shaped body of land.

Geography: Land and Water

As reported by the Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 406 square miles (1,053 km²), of which, 405 square miles (1,049 km²) of it is land and 2 square miles (4 km²) of it (0.41%) is water.

Neighboring Counties

Bordering counties are as follows:

• Tunica County (north)
• Panola County (east)
• Tallahatchie County (south)
• Coahoma County (west)

Education

On July 24, 1969, federal judge William Keady found that Quitman County school officials were maintaining an unconstitutional de jure racially segregated school system, and he placed the school board under the supervision of United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. As of 1993, this order had not been set aside. In March 1991, the school board asked the district court for permission to close Crowder elementary and junior high school, a majority-white school. The court gave permission, and a group of parents sued for an injunction to prevent the closing. The district court denied them an injunction, and this decision was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

By 1975, the majority of African-American students in Quitman County were attending public schools, which had earlier been segregated. But the majority of white students had been moved into newly established private academies. This situation has continued; in 2007 the Mississippi Department of Education found that the students in the district were 97.92% African American, 1.81% White, and 0.27% Hispanic.

Public School Districts

Quitman County School District

Private Schools

Delta Academy (Marks)

Compare More Colleges and Universities

Find more schools to match to your needs.

Start Now