The Office of Community Engagement at Jackson State University, thanks to funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, has completed an outdoor mural by the artist Sabrina Howard at the COFO Civil Rights Education Center. The mural represents pioneers of the West Jackson community and was a collaboration of the neighborhoods that surround JSU including Washington Addition, Hemingway Circle, and Pecan Park.
The Margaret Walker Center invites the community to join us at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 24, to celebrate the completion of the mural at the COFO Center at 1017 John R. Lynch Street.
You are invited to this historic event to celebrate pioneers of our community. For more information, please call 601-979-5828 or email heather.a.denne@jsums.edu.
Those featured on the mural include:
- Representative Alyce G. Clarke, First African American female legislator in Mississippi (Pecan Park Neighborhood).
- Fannie Lou Hamer, Civil rights leader and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activist who helped COFO to organize the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project (Freedom Summer) and who was one of the leaders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) that held its state convention at the Masonic Temple on Lynch Street in 1964.
- Bob Moses, Civil rights leader and field secretary for SNCC who founded COFO and its state headquarters at 1017 John R. Lynch Street.
- Rose Elizabeth Howard Robinson, Lanier High School Teacher (Hemingway Circle Neighborhood).
- Albert Powell, 1st African American florist in community (Washington Addition Neighborhood).
- Louise Marshall, 1st African American bookstore owner in community (Washington Addition Neighborhood).