Jackson Free Press

Jackson State University is moving ahead with a project to transform a section of Lynch Street near the university into a memorial to the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, Interim JSU President Leslie Burl McLemore said today.

"We've been talking for years about developing the ... civil rights corridor to identify those historic places that contributed to the Civil Rights Movement," McLemore told the crowd at the Koinonia Friday Forum. "We'll need the participation of the Masons and the NAACP in moving this project forward, and we want to point out to the businesses in the area the importance of the Masonic Building, the founding of the (Mississippi) Freedom (Democratic) Party and the freedom campaign. The list of Civil Rights work that happened in this area goes on and on."

McLemore said the university has access to a $500,000 federal earmark allowing the renovation of the Council of Federated Organizations building at the corner of Lynch and Rose streets, adding that the building was at the center of the historic 1964 Freedom Summer effort, and hosted many civil-rights organization meetings.

"What we're going to do is look at Terry Road all the way back to the university, that old movie theater that was there and Pratt Memorial United Methodist Church that was very integral to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s," he said. "... Then we'll move to the (JSU) campus and highlight the assassination of students there in the 1970s."

McLemore said the renovation also includes a cemetery along Lynch Street, which he said contains the remains of Reconstruction politicians. He said the COFO building will serve as an anchor to the endeavor, considering the funds are already in place to renovate the building and that JSU will "develop a community-based educational museum" within it.

The coalition of organizations already involved in the renovation includes the NAACP, the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy, and several churches.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson, whose headquarters occupy the Masonic Temple near the COFO building, said he welcomed the project.

"I'm elated to see civil rights history is going to be properly captured," Johnson said, adding that he was working on securing funds to renovate the Masonic Temple, which temporarily housed civil rights workers during the height of the Movement. "It's important that we capture the history of individuals who worked during the Civil Rights Movement and can commemorate their legacy through the refurbishment of buildings. It represents how far we've come as a state and a nation."