With Memorial Day around the corner, city and county officials are determined to ensure the holiday doesn’t pass without recognizing the names of Black soldiers from Lowndes County who fought and died in World War I.
About five years ago, Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science history teacher Chuck Yarborough and his students discovered that the names of at least 12 local Black soldiers had been omitted from the WWI memorial at the county courthouse.
Mayor Keith Gaskin told The Dispatch a new permanent memorial to honor the soldiers has been in the works, but he wanted to find a temporary solution ahead of Monday that would honor the soldiers.
“We’ve been talking about this for several months, but we’ve not sat down and formally figured everything out,” he said. “Then it dawned on me a few weeks ago that Memorial Day was coming up, and I was determined to find a way that the soldiers were not left out.”
Gaskin and Yarborough came up with an idea for a temporary marker that memorializes the forgotten soldiers and includes a QR code to the list of names with a video of MSMS graduate Dylan Wiley’s Black History Month performance in February, which recognizes the omission of the names.
Gaskin said the temporary monument will be displayed in the garden outside of Columbus City Hall before Memorial Day and will remain there until something more permanent is in place at the courthouse.
Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston said he’s working on finding a more resilient metal sign to have at City Hall since the permanent monument could take a while.
“We just don’t know how long it’s going to be,” Hairston said. “But I do know that one more Memorial Day is going to go by without those names being listed (on the monument), and I don’t think that’s right.”
Yarborough echoed his sentiment, adding that memorializing the names of all community members rather than only some creates a more complete picture of the county’s history.
“That more complete understanding empowers us as a community to make decisions that are well informed,” he said. “As a nation on Memorial Day, we remember with gratitude all of those people who served our nation and gave that ultimate sacrifice. To not recognize some men in this community who volunteered for service, who stood up for service and then lost their lives in that service to the nation is a grave failing on our part.”
Permanent marker in the works
Gaskin hopes the temporary marker will give the project more momentum when it comes to determining specifics for the permanent memorial at the Lowndes County courthouse and finding donors who are willing to contribute. He said some community organizations and local veterans groups have already shown interest.
Gaskin said some details about the permanent monument are still up in the air, including what it will look like and how much it will cost. In the meantime, they are speaking with experts to figure out the best way to go about updating the WWI memorial. The courthouse memorial was first erected in 1933 at the Magnolia Bowl before it was rededicated on the courthouse lawn in 2015.
“We want to make sure we work with professionals who have an understanding of the best way to make an adjustment like this to a monument,” he said. “… We want to make sure that we’re honoring these forgotten soldiers in the best possible way we can.”
Hairston said the permanent monument will likely be separate from the current one.
“Because when you add to an existing monument, it just never looks right because you can’t match the marble and do all of that,” he said. “So it may be better to add a separate monument with the names of the Black soldiers who fought and died instead of trying to add it to the existing.”
Adding a separate monument, Gaskin said, would require adding context of how and why the names were left out to begin with.
“I think it’s important that we not just try to add their names and pretend it never happened,” he said. “I think this type of thing is a very teachable moment, and it can really make people stop and think … and try to imagine what that was like and why decisions like that would have ever been made.”
As plans for the permanent marker continue, Gaskin encourages people to stop by City Hall to see the temporary marker, scan the QR codes and leave flowers or notes at the memorial if they feel inclined.
“I just think it’s important that we honor these individuals, and we try to do everything we can to make sure that people understand the true history of this,” he said. “I just want to make sure we do it right.”
Names of Black soldiers from Lowndes County who died in World War I
■ Jim Crim
■ Edgar Harris
■ Otis James
■ Steve Jamison
■ Elisha Jones
■ Mac Jones
■ Will Matthews
■ Alex Miller
■ Walter Nickels
■ Will Perkins
■ T. Quin
■ Saunders Richardson
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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