JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has added the Mississippi home of Medgar and Myrlie Evers to the African-American Civil Rights Network, which was created by federal law this year.
Medgar Evers was the Mississippi NAACP’s first field secretary beginning in 1954, and led voter registration drives and boycotts to push for racial equality. He was assassinated in June 1963 outside the family’s ranch-style home in Jackson.
His widow, Myrlie, who is still alive, served as national NAACP chairwoman from 1995 to 1998.
The National Park Service unveiled a bronze plaque in May showing the Evers’ home is a national historic landmark. The Interior Department approved the landmark designation in 2016 and announced it in 2017.
The department is now taking public comments on making the home a national monument.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signs a proclamation designating the former home of the late civil right activist Medgar Evers and his wife Myrlie Evers, into the African American Civil Rights Network, Friday, Aug. 3, 2018, at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss. Attending the ceremony were, from left, Charles Evers, the brother of Evers, Reena Evers-Everett, daughter of the couple, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Beverly Wade Hogan, president of the college. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
