The Starkville Unity Park Advisory Committee will be accepting nominations for 2018 civil rights honorees beginning on Oct. 1 and continuing to Nov. 15.
Unity Park was formed in 2014 in an area on Douglas L. Connor Drive beside the courthouse annex. It features plaques honoring Martin Luther King Jr., longtime physician and Starkville civil rights leader Douglas L. Connor, former Mississippi Gov. William Winter, Fannie Lou Hammer, Medgar Evers, and the 1963 “Game of Change” between Mississippi State University men’s basketball team and Chicago Loyola’s basketball teams — the first time MSU played an integrated team.
The committee plans to expand the park to honor two others who contributed to the civil rights movement in Oktibbeha County, according to advisory committee chair Jeanne Marszalek. The new honorees will be officially added to the park on Martin Luther King Day on Jan. 15, 2018.
Each nominee must have lived in Oktibbeha County for at least part of his or her life, been deceased for five years or longer at the time of nomination, significantly contributed to civil rights in the county and advanced community unity.
The new honorees will not have a plaque like the current honorees do, Marszalek said, but they will still have their name visible there in some way.
“I think many times people forget all of the hard work, suffering and punishment people received to bring equality to the state,” Marszalek said. “I just think it’s important to bring these names forward to remind others to keep going and continue fighting for what is right in the county, state and country. There is still so much division, whether it is between blacks and whites or gays and straights, and even though there have been many changes already, there is still a lot that needs to be done.”
Nominations can be submitted online by emailing [email protected], or sent in writing to 108 Grand Ridge Road in Starkville.
Unity Park history
The idea of the Unity Park, Marzsaleck said, grew from concerned citizens noticing monuments being built that honored Oktibbeha County Civil War soldiers, but seeing little that honored those who soldiered for civil rights.
In 2013, the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors approved the park’s design, which included a wall with plaques honoring President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., A. Phillip Randolph and William Winter. Those plaques were installed but remained veiled awaiting the park’s dedication.
A year later, after supervisors formed the advisory committee, its members unanimously agreed to change the honorees to people who had a direct impact on civil rights in Oktibbeha County.
After changing some of the plaques, the park was officially dedicated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2015.
“The Unity Park is such an important element of Oktibbeha County because it offers an opportunity to highlight the accomplishments and sacrifices of the people who made our county what it is today,” District 3 Supervisor Marvell Howard said. “I and the rest of the board of supervisors are just so appreciative of the advisory committee for making this what it is today for our community.”
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