US Sec. of Transportation visits MS to highlight Medgar Evers Blvd. project investment

United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visited Jackson Friday to commemorate the beginning of a multimillion-dollar improvement project to about 1.5 miles of Medgar Evers Boulevard.

Friday, about a block away from the road's namesake, Medgar Evers and his family home in North Jackson, Buttigieg, joined by U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Jackson, Reena Evers Everette, Central District Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons and others held a groundbreaking to celebrate the beginning of the project.

The Medgar Evers Boulevard Project is slated to be completed by 2026. The project is funded through a $20 million grant from Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity Discretionary Grant program in 2021. The City of Jackson will need to put up matching funds as well.

The scope of the work will include installing sidewalks and new streetlamps, repairing roads, building medians and even replacing sewer and water drainage infrastructure along the road. Buttigieg said those improvements would be necessary to reconnect the area to the rest of modern Jackson and spur economic development in the area.

Buttigieg added that the project represents a key aspect of the civil rights movement, which connects infrastructural needs for better transportation to disadvantaged communities so that everyone has the same opportunities to grow.

"As we bear the moral weight of our inheritance, it feels a little bit strange to be talking about streetlights and ports, and highway funding and some of the other day to day transportation needs that we're here to do something about," he said. "Equitable transportation has always been one of the core commitments, and for that reason has also always been one of the most important battlegrounds of the struggle for racial and economic justice and civil rights in this country."

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Everette, who is Evers' daughter, thanked both Buttigieg and Thompson for their work in Washington D.C. and in Congress to secure the necessary funds for the project.

"(It's about) raising the bar of excellence for the community, to have pride in the infrastructure that starts from the very core that goes on to beautification that goes on to the best pride in the world for the communities," Everette said. "I just wanted to say thank you very much."

The road's namesake, Evers, was a prominent civil rights activist in Jackson and served as the NAACP's first field secretary until he was assassinated in June 1963 by Byron De La Beckwith, a white man from Greenwood.

Thompson said that the money USDOT has given to the city to begin the project should be seen as a steppingstone to other needs throughout the city, and a method to reconnect cities that were split by highways and other projects, leaving some out of the town's growth through the years.

"Statistics will show all throughout countries that communities were split by interstate highways, communities were divided," he said. "Here is a way of trying to reconnect and fix some of the errors of that. This is just one of those down payments on making a difference. This down payment, will fix some of the problems associated with years of neglect."

Buttigieg added that throughout his time visiting Mississippi communities throughout the last few days, he sees more and more areas that will need to be addressed to establish more equitable transportation, which he said is essential to growing an area.

"Better transportation can mean better opportunities for small business and for families," he said. "Good transportation can lead directly to economic opportunity in the same way that lack of access to transportation can cut people off from opportunity. We're here to make sure that transportation connects, that it doesn't divide."

Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Buttigieg breaks ground on Medgar Evers Blvd. project in Jackson MS