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Why is the Jackson airport named after Medgar Evers?
By Garret Grove,
1 day ago
JACKSON, Miss. ( WJTV ) – Jackson’s most prominent Civil Rights figure has not always been synonymous with its international airport.
The former namesake for Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport was a longtime mayor of Jackson. Though the 20th anniversary of the name change is in December, Allen Cavett Thompson served as Jackson’s mayor from 1948 to 1969. He was mayor when Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963.
Like many prominent Mississippi leaders , Thompson was a known segregationist. During the Civil Rights Movement, he publicly portrayed Jackson as a city without racial inequality and characterized the NAACP as outside agitators. Evers was the field secretary for the Jackson chapter of the NAACP. Thompson’s infamous record related to Civil Rights did not change for the better after Evers died.
In 1964, Thompson approved the purchase of a tank in anticipation of the arrival of Civil Rights workers for Freedom Summer. The tank intended to intimidate and threaten the activists was first used at Jackson State University (JSU).
Memphis police later borrowed the armored tank to transport James Earl Ray after he shot Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The International Harvester Loadstar 1600, outfitted with armor, metal bars, grating, searchlights and sirens, was designated a Mississippi Landmark in 2015 .
Construction on Allen C. Thompson Field, Jackson Municipal Airport began in 1963. It was one of the first small airports constructed with parallel runways. In 1989, the United States Customs Service designated Jackson Municipal Airport as an international port of entry. Part of the airport’s name was officially changed to Jackson International Airport.
FILE – Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), poses for a photo, Aug. 9, 1955, in Jackson, Miss. On Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023, Mississippi’s congressional delegation sent a letter urging President Joe Biden to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to civil rights leader Evers. He was assassinated outside his home in Jackson on June 12, 1963, as a result of his work to promote racial equality, voting rights and social justice. (AP Photo, File)
In 2004, Jackson resident Ineva May-Pittman pushed for a name change. According to an AP News report, the Jackson City Council voted 6-0 to change the name to Jackson-Evers International Airport. In 2011, the name was changed again to Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport to clarify that the airport was named after Evers.
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