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Potential National Monument Designations - Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home, Mississippi; Mill Springs Battlefield, Kentucky; and Camp Nelson, Kentucky.

National Park Service - Washington Office » Potential National Monument Designations - Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home, Mississippi; Mill Springs Battlefield, Kentucky; and Camp Nelson, Kentucky. » Document List

The National Park Service (NPS) is seeking public comments on three potential national monument designations: the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home, Jackson, Mississippi; Mill Springs Battlefield, Nancy, Kentucky; and Camp Nelson, Nicholasville, Kentucky.

Medgar Evers was an important national figure in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The assassination of Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963, in the carport of his home, was one of the catalysts for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both Medgar and Myrlie, his wife, were major contributors to advancing the goals of the civil rights movement on a national level.

On January 19, 1862, Union and Confederate forces met in the Battle of Mill Springs in Pulaski and Wayne Counties, Kentucky. Mill Springs is considered to be the first significant Union victory in the western theater of the American Civil War; it permitted Federal troops to carry the war into Middle Tennessee a few weeks later.

During the American Civil War, Camp Nelson in Jessamine and Pulaski Counties, Kentucky, served as an important training area for U.S. Colored Troops who joined the Union Army to fight for their freedom. The camp began as a fortified U.S. Army supply depot, hospital, and garrison in 1863. Camp Nelson is significant as one of the nation's largest recruitment and training centers for African American soldiers during the American Civil War, and as the site of a large refugee camp for the wives and children of the African American soldiers, who were escaping slavery and seeking freedom.

The Antiquities Act has been used to preserve and protect natural and cultural resources on Federal lands for future generations. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act in 1906 providing a foundation for natural resource conservation and cultural preservation. A potential National Monument designation of these sites through the Antiquities Act may serve to preserve their nationally significant historic resources.


Contact Information

Charles Laudner, Senior Advisor
Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs, National Park Service
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240.
Phone (202) 513-7212