Wilkinson County rejects renaming of road where Black veteran was killed; family seeks memorials

The Wilkinson County Board of Supervisors has rejected a request to rename the road where a Black World War II veteran was gunned down, the family and local reporting said.

Board administrator David Wilkerson told the family that supervisors turned down the request because the “vast majority of the residents on this road opposed the name change,” Mississippi Today reported. The family of Clifton Earl Walker said they are disappointed and will pursue other ways to honor him.

Walker’s granddaughter, Rosabel Hall, wrote to supervisors proposing alternatives that would recognize his life and service, Mississippi Today reported. She suggested a historical sign, naming a county-owned facility, park, bridge or community center, designating a portion of a roadway as the Clifton Earl Walker Memorial Highway, or adopting a county resolution honoring his legacy.

Mississippi Today reported groups can purchase state historical markers for $2,800 and Freedom Trail markers for $11,000. Hall told the news outlet that some residents who opposed changing addresses said they would support a memorial or historical sign.

Clifton Walker, 37, was fatally shot on Feb. 28, 1964, on Poor House Road about six miles north of Woodville after leaving his shift at the integrated International Paper plant in Natchez, Mississippi Today and historical records show. FBI and congressional records indicate the Mississippi Highway Patrol sought to arrest then-Wilkinson County Constable Gordon “Bud” Geter and Klansman Ed Fuller, but then-District Attorney Lennox Forman declined to charge them.

The FBI concluded the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan carried out a series of violent attacks in southwest Mississippi at the time and are believed to have killed at least 10 people, records show. The FBI reopened the Walker case in 2009 under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act and the Justice Department closed it in 2013, saying all known suspects were dead, Mississippi Today reported. Journalist Ben Greenberg urged supervisors to make Poor House Road a memorial, saying it could give Walker’s family “some closure where all else has failed him,” Mississippi Today reported.

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