LOWNDES COUNTY – In roughly eight more weeks, the county will finally correct a more than 90-year-old error to the World War I monument sitting on the courthouse lawn.
County supervisors on Monday approved placing a marble marker at the courthouse that will include the names of 14 soldiers from Lowndes County, all but two of them Black, who lost their lives in the Great War but whose names were omitted from the original monument.
“It’s about time,” Trip Hairston, board of supervisors president, told The Dispatch after the meeting.
The county purchased the marker from Columbus Marble Works for $3,250, County Administrator Jay Fisher said. It will sit at the base of the original marker to where all the names can be seen together.
The marker should be in place by late April.
“When the marker is installed, then we’ll have a larger event, of course, to celebrate the fact that everyone’s name is listed,” Hairston said.
The WWI monument, dedicated by the Daughters of the American Revolution, was first installed in the Magnolia Bowl in 1933 before it was moved to the courthouse lawn in 2015. It features the names of Lowndes County soldiers who fought in the war.
Through research in 2023, students in Chuck Yarborough’s African American history class at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science discovered the names of nine African Americans not listed on the original monument. Additional research led to the discovery of five additional names of omitted Lowndes County soldiers, three Black and two white.
A year later, Yarborough approached Hairston and then-Columbus mayor Keith Gaskin, in an effort to right the wrong. Those three, along with District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith, met several times to discuss logistics, cost and the exact wording for the new marker.
The inscription will explain the monument’s history, the error and the research that brought the omissions to light.
“If you list one, obviously you should list them all,” Hairston said. “… We’re forever grateful for the sacrifice they gave for our country.”
Both Hairston and Yarborough acknowledged project planning took longer than expected, but both are happy to see it finally come together.
“It’s a testament to the community’s leadership that, while it may have taken a little while, we … are correcting a historic omission,” Yarborough said. “It’s the right thing for every community to honor the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our nation. To not have the names of the African American soldiers who died in the Great War on our monument was a real problem. So I’m happy to see that being corrected.
“To me, this monument is (also) a testament to the contributions of high-school kids developing as leaders,” he added.
Smith agreed.
“It means a lot,” Smith told The Dispatch. “… Here’s a chance for us to participate in doing an upgrade and including those who were left off the monument. It’s a great opportunity to be a part of that, and I look forward to seeing that monument when it’s completed.”
Fisher said at least two organizations had contacted him with interest in donating money to the county to defray the cost of the marker. He said anyone else interested in that type of donation can contact him at (662) 329-5896 or [email protected].
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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