Almost four years after its construction and months of renovations, Unity Park and its numerous plaques honoring local and state figures key in advancing civil rights were formally dedicated and unveiled during Starkville’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration Monday.
Led by Brother Rogers, the co-chairman of a grassroots committee charged with redesigning the public greenspace beside the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Department, honorees helped remove tarps that had covered the plaques since Unity Park was completed in 2011.
“(The park) is going to be here long after every one of us is gone. But there’s going to only be one dedication, one unveiling (and) one opening ceremony. We are part of history by being here today,” Rogers said before the monuments honoring Douglas Conner, Gov. William Winter, Medgar Evers, King and the 1963 “Game of Change” between Mississippi State University and Loyola (Chicago) University.
Another panel displaying a timeline of local events — ranging from the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek to 2003 when Mississippi State University hired the first African-American head football coach in the Southeastern Conference, Sylvester Croom — was also unveiled.
Last year, supervisors approved a plan to renovate the park into a more user-friendly area with a large seating area and a stage through in-kind donations of labor and equipment, while organizers raised funds to replace some of the existing plaques with those that specifically honored local residents’ achievements.
Future projects could add benches and seating, while Unity Park committee members previously expressed an interest in future monument installation to honor other activists.
Rogers said the day was one that elicited bittersweet emotions: Unity Park’s plaques were unveiled, but two activists key in the park’s formation and redesign were unable to see the group’s vision displayed before Oktibbeha County residents.
Dorothy Bishop, 74, and Ava Moore, 65, died last year.
Bishop, a well-known activist, approached supervisors years ago asking for the construction of monuments to the civil rights movement, while Moore co-chaired the Unity Park committee and had a guiding hand in the park’s facelift.
“I know Ava is looking down with pride today,” Rogers said. “This park was (Bishop’s) vision, and I know she’s smiling down from heaven also.”
Speakers all acknowledged how far the US has come in terms of race relations but said residents must continue to treat King’s vision as a work in progress, as true harmony and understanding take effort, empathy and compassion.
“(We) honor those individuals that were willing to stand up and say we are all human beings and, more importantly, we are all God’s children,” said District 3 Supervisor Marvell Howard. “To those great people who stood up as a beacon of light in those dark days, we will always owe a debt of gratitude. We will continue to be that beacon of light wherever and whenever darkness tries to rear its ugly head. We were all born with a light; it is our choice to let it shine.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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