Mississippi to rename highways, roads after civil rights victims

Jet, Feb 28, 2005

A bill approved by the state Senate of Mississippi has paved the way for highways in three counties to be renamed for victims of the nation's most infamous civil rights killings.

The bill would rename a portion of U.S. 49 East in Leflore and Tallahatchie Counties the Emmett Till Memorial Highway, after the Black 14-year-old who was beaten to death in 1955, supposedly for whistling at a white woman. That case has recently been re-opened by prosecutors.

Also, a stretch of Mississippi 19 near Philadelphia stands to be renamed for the three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, ambushed and killed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. A reputed former Klansman, Edgar Ray Killen, recently was indicted in the ease (JUT, Jan. 31).

If the bill is passed in the House and signed by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, it will be the first state-sponsored memorial for Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, said Sen. Gloria Williamson, a Democrat from Philadelphia.

The measure was unanimously approved by the conservative, 52-member Senate, which has eight Black members.