Officials are still working to finalize plans to honor 12 Black soldiers and two white soldiers whose names were omitted from the World War I monument at the Lowndes County Courthouse.
Aiming to correct the longstanding oversight, plans for either creating a new monument or adding to the current one have stalled since last year.
“We just had other fires burning,” Trip Hairston, board of supervisors president, told The Dispatch. “That’s something we do need to finish up with. But I do have the verbiage, and now it’s just going through the process of getting it quoted (for price) and then figuring out what needs to be done.”
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.
Nearly six years ago, Chuck Yarborough, history teacher at Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, and his students discovered the names of nine Black soldiers that were originally not listed on the monument. Additional research led to the discovery of five additional names of Lowndes County soldiers, three of whom were Black and two of whom were white.
Yarborough said adding the missing names to the monument would reflect gratitude the entire community shares for the soldiers’ service.
“I think our entire community is grateful for the sacrifices that men and women who’ve gone before us have made on our behalf,” Yarborough told The Dispatch. “Recognizing and honoring, in this case, an additional 14 men who gave their lives in service to our nation – which is also … in service to our community – is not only worthwhile to me, that’s absolutely essential.”
A committee was formed last year to develop a plan for either adding the names to the original monument or creating a new monument to honor the soldiers.
The group created a temporary fix of placing a sign with a QR code listing the names of the omitted soldiers and a video of MSMS graduate Dylan Wiley’s Black History Month performance last year, which honored the soldiers.
“We probably ought to get that group back together, but we’ve had a change in mayors,” Hairston said, noting former mayor Keith Gaskin helped lead the efforts. “I’m certain that (Mayor Stephen Jones) would be all for it too. But we do have some change in … the people that were around the table.”
Jones told The Dispatch he has not been involved in the process so far but said he would be happy to join the effort.
After consulting with Key Blair at Columbus Marble Works, Hairston said the best approach will likely be adding a marker to the current monument honoring the soldiers, as taking apart the monument could risk permanent damage.
“You’d create another monument, probably at the base of it, and then we will add those names to the bottom and put some verbiage (saying) these were left off,” Hairston said. “It’s not a very complicated fix. It’s probably going to take some time to get everything ordered and … installed. Other than that, it’s not very complicated.”
With the wording in hand, Hairston said the next step for the marker is reconnecting with Columbus Marble Works to determine what the addition will look like.
The new marker will list all of the names while also acknowledging that they were originally omitted, Yarborough said.
“When the monument panels above were originally constructed in 1933, the names of nine African American soldiers who died in service during World War I and had been identified by the DAR were left off,” the suggested wording reads. “Recent research has uncovered five additional soldiers from Lowndes County who died in service to the nation during the Great War. As an addition to the Lowndes County Roll of Honor for World War I, the names of these 14 men are memorialized here by a community grateful for their sacrifice on behalf of our nation.”
Names of the 14 soldiers from Lowndes County who died in World War I but are not listed on the courthouse monument
■ Steve Jamison
■ Otis James
■ T. Quin
■ Saunders Richardson
■ Jim Crim
■ Walter Nickels
■ Mac Jones
■ Will Perkins
■ Will Mathews
■ Edgar Harris
■ Elisha Jones
■ Alex Miller
■ Howard B. Barton
■ Garland A. Robinson
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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