Incorporated in 1836, the city was founded by European-American settlers after most of the Choctaw people, who had long occupied this area, were forced to cede their land to the United States and remove to the Indian Territory.

The new settlers initially developed riverfront land along the Yazoo and Black rivers for cotton plantations, primarily worked by enslaved African Americans.

[4] During the plantation era, the city was bustling, as planters grew wealthy from the booming demand for cotton in the North and Europe.

They sought education and some became landowners, clearing land in the bottomlands and selling their timber to raise money for purchase.

This progress was before 1890, when they were essentially deprived of the vote by the state legislature passing a new constitution, which created barriers to voter registration and forced them out of politics for decades into the late 20th century.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, financial recession and lack of political clout meant that many freedmen lost their land; within a generation they had regressed to the status of sharecropper and tenant farmer.

His house at North Street is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its distinctive architecture, and is known as the "Gov.

In the early 20th century, Mississippi planters recruited Chinese immigrant workers to satisfy the demand for farm labor, and some came to Holmes County.

Many African Americans fled the South for northern and midwestern industrial cities, seeking more opportunities and escape from the violence of lynchings and oppression of Jim Crow rules.

Hazel Brannon Smith, a white woman from an upper-class family, was based in Lexington, where she owned and published several rural newspapers.

She promoted integration and change in the region during the civil rights era, winning a Pulitzer Prize for her editorials in 1964, the year of Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, organized by African Americans before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by Congress.

The investigation revealed a pattern of misconduct, including excessive force, discriminatory arrests, and a reliance on fines and fees that disproportionately burden Black residents and those struggling financially.

These practices erode public trust and undermine the very principles of justice that law enforcement agencies are meant to uphold.

The DOJ's findings led to a series of recommendations aimed at reforming the police department and improving its practices.

[8] Lexington is in the center of Holmes County on the north side of the valley of Black Creek, a west-flowing tributary of the Yazoo River.

Many African Americans left the area in the Great Migration, particularly before passage of civil rights legislation, for better jobs elsewhere and to escape Jim Crow.

She led its growth and the setting of high academic standards to provide opportunities to black students; the school had a national reputation.