Photo credit: roscoereporting.blogspot.com/2021/10/natchez-us-colored-troops-monument.html
NATCHEZ, Miss. – Eight sites are being considered for honoring Black Union soldiers stationed in Natchez during the Civil War.
A committee organized by Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson presented plans Wednesday as it works to site, design, research and fund the monument.
The suggested sites: Memorial Park in downtown Natchez; the Forks of the Road slave market site; land by the Natchez City Cemetery; two parcels on Martin Luther King and Gayoso and MLK and B streets; property by Zion Chapel AME Church; the empty lot on Broadway and State streets; the Natchez Visitor Center.
The potential sites were selected by committee members using criteria based on various factors, including historical significance, visibility, access and capacity to accommodate visitors to the monument, said Visit Natchez Executive Director Devin Heath, who leads the city’s tourism department.
Heath is a member of the Natchez U.S. Colored Troops Monument Committee, which gathered Wednesday to update the public and seek its input and support for building the memorial.
Gibson initiated plans early this year to honor more than 3,000 Black soldiers who served in Natchez when it was occupied by the Union army beginning in 1863.
The newly freed slaves’ work focused largely on demolishing the Forks of the Road slave market and building Fort McPherson, the earthen fortification in north Natchez along the Mississippi River, according to historical accounts.
While few Black soldiers stationed in Natchez were involved in Civil War combat, about 800 died from diseases, according to historian Ronald Davis.
In his book “The Black Experience in Natchez: 1720-1880,” Davis wrote that the Black Union soldiers’ encampments were “beset by such rampant sickness as to render (troops) unfit for active duty most of the time.”
For more information, go to the Natchez U.S. Colored Troops Monument Committee’s Facebook page or website:
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