Gilbert Ellzey Carmichael was an American businessman and politician. Born in Columbia, Mississippi, he attended Texas A&M University and served in the United States Coast Guard during the Korean War, earning a Silver Lifesaving Medal for helping rescue crewmen from a sinking tanker. In June 1950 Carmichael was hired by the Dow Jones & Company to sell its newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. After eight years, he joined a friend in distributing cars in Shreveport, Louisiana. He later became a partner in a car dealership in Meridian, Mississippi, before taking over the business. A member of the Republican Party, he became involved in politics in the 1960s, making two unsuccessful bids for a seat in the Mississippi State Legislature. Carmichael also ran for a U.S. Senate seat in 1972 and in 1975 ran for the office of Governor of Mississippi, the first serious Republican contender for the post in decades. He lost a narrow race and made another unsuccessful bid in 1979. He also launched an unsuccessful independent campaign in 1983 to be elected Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi. From the 1970s to the 1990s he served on various national transportation advisory boards. He died in 2016.

Columbia is a U.S. city in and the county seat of Marion County, Mississippi, United States. Formed six years before Mississippi was admitted to statehood, Columbia was named for Columbia, South Carolina, from which many of the early settlers had migrated. The population was 5,864 as of the 2020 census, down from 6,582 in 2010.