The Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics will address the issue Wednesday of whether Mississippi should be represented in the U.S. Capitolâs National Statuary Hall by two 19th century figures prominent in the secessionist movement.
The program, âRevisiting Jefferson Davis and J.Z. George: U.S. Capitol Relics?â begins at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public. The Overby Center is on the Ole Miss campus.
Overby Center chairman Charles Overby will be joined in the discussion by William âBrotherâ Rogers, president of the Mississippi Historical Society, and Marvin King, associate professor of political science and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi.
âWe expect a robust discussion about whether any 20th century Mississippians should be placed in the Statuary Hall,â Overby said in a press release. âA lot has happened since the Legislature made their selections in 1931.â
The release notes that King holds a Ph.D from the University of North Texas. A member of the Ole Miss faculty, his core teaching and research interests are African American politics, the politics of the American South and American Federalism. He is a senior faculty fellow at Residential College South.
Rogers served as associate director of the John C. Stennis Center for Public Service at Mississippi State University for 26 years, the release states. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987, was named a Truman Scholar and earned his masterâs degree in public affairs from Princeton University. Rogers has photographed every historical marker in Mississippi and created a website (www.mississippimarkers.com) that displays nearly 1,300 markers.
âThere is no question that Davis and George were political leaders from Mississippi in the 19th century,â Overby said in the release. âThe question is whether there are 20 th century Mississippians equally or more deserving to represent Mississippi today.â
âMississippi has an impressive list of accomplished 20th century citizens worthy of consideration,â Overby continued. âThey range from Senator John Stennis to authors William Faulkner and Eudora Welty to civil rights leader Medgar Evers, along with many others.â
Changing the figures representing states has occurred recently. For example, in 2009 Alabama replaced Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, a congressman and Confederate officer, with Helen Keller.
Any changes must be approved by the legislature, governor and a Congressional committee. The law requires persons selected for statues to be âillustrious for historic renown for distinguished civic or military service.â
Editorâs note: Overby is on the board of directors of Mississippi Today.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You canât edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You canât sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer âAuthor Name, Mississippi Todayâ in the byline. If youâre not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: âThis story was originally published by Mississippi Todayâ and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You canât edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You canât sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually â not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
My choices:
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 â March 25, 1931)
William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 â July 6, 1962)
Riley Benjamin (B.B.) King (September 16, 1925 â May 14, 2015)
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 â August 16, 1977)