Ebenezer, Mississippi

Ebenezer is an unincorporated community located in Holmes County, Mississippi. Ebenezer is located at the west end of the eastern segment of Mississippi Highway 14, approximately 10 miles (16 km) south of the county seat of Lexington and 4 miles (6.4 km) approximately west of Goodman.

Ebenezer, Mississippi
Unincorporated community
Ebenezer
Ebenezer
Coordinates: 32°58′14″N 90°05′27″W
CountryUnited States
StateMississippi
CountyHolmes
Elevation
331 ft (101 m)
Time zoneUTC-6 (Central (CST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code
39146
Area code(s)662
GNIS feature ID669637[1]

According to a 1905 source, Ebenezer was named by settlers from "the old Jewish city".[2] It may have been a destination of some German-Jewish immigrants, who settled mostly in Lexington in the county beginning in the 1830s. They were joined later in the century by Russian Jewish immigrants. The community built Temple Beth El in Lexington in 1905; it closed in 2009 because of declining population.[3]

Perry Wilbon Howard was born in Ebenezer in 1877 to African-American parents who had been enslaved. He became an attorney among the second generation of African-American lawyers in the state, with a practice in the state capital of Jackson. Even after the state legislature disfranchised most blacks through provisions of the 1890 constitution, Howard continued to be active as a member of the Republican Party. He served as a national committeeman from the state, and a civil rights activist. Appointed as an aide in the office of the United States Attorney General in the administration of President Warren G. Harding, Howard was the highest-ranking African American in government at the time.

Robert G. Clark Jr. was born October 3, 1928 in Ebenezer and presently resides there. In 1967 he was the first African American elected to the Mississippi State Legislature since the Reconstruction era. Until 1976 he was the only African-American representative in the state house, having been repeatedly returned to office. In 1992 he was elected Speaker Pro Tempore of the Mississippi House of Representatives and he continued to serve in that position until retired in 2003.

References
  1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Ebenezer, Mississippi
  2. Gannett, Henry (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. Govt. Print. Off. pp. 113.
  3. "A Final Yom Kippur in the Delta for Mississippi Community Begun in 1830s", The Jewish Daily Forward


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