The Greenwood City Council agreed Tuesday to consider more additions to the Emmett Till statue to be placed at Rail Spike Park.
Leflore County District 2 Supervisor Reginald Moore spoke to the council about the statue’s development and asked for additional development of the site.
“To pay homage to Emmett is paramount, especially for this area,” he said. “It’s going to be a tourist attraction, I’m sure.”
Utah artist Matt Glen is constructing the bronze statue, which Moore estimated will be 14 feet high. Moore predicted it would be completed by late summer or early fall.
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago, was murdered while visiting family in Money in 1955 after whistling at a white woman. Moore told the council that the incident sparked the civil rights movement.
“I got to looking at the area, and right now it’s just a grassy knoll,” he said. “I didn’t want to put such a dynamic statue just in the middle of grass because people are going to walk up to it, people are going to gather around it and they end up walking on grass. And then they wear the grass out.”
He asked the board to allow the county to put concrete and cobblestone on the location, which he said was approximately 60 feet by 60 feet. He asked whether the site could be named “Emmett Till Square at the Rail Spike Park.”
Mayor Carolyn McAdams and Council President Ronnie Stevenson expressed their support. City Attorney Don Brock said a resolution can be prepared by the council’s next meeting in May.
In other business:
- McAdams said Greenwood police will start cracking down on gatherings that block roads.
Some streets “are just being taken over — literally taken over — with people have street parties,” she said. “They’re up and down the street. There’s nowhere to park. People that live on the street can’t even get out and in from their own homes. That’s not what we want to see in the city of Greenwood.”
She said city surveillance cameras have helped to identify this problem.
Police Chief Terrence Craft said streets sometimes are blocked so that not even one-way traffic can get through. “They had the street blocked one day, I was watching the camera, and the mail lady can’t even get down the street,” he said. “They’re blocking both sides.”
Craft added that officers also are dealing with gatherings of people in front of stores, particularly late at night.
McAdams said police do have the power to close a store early if gatherings get out of hand, and she added the city could enforce a closure if it becomes a safety issue.
- Brantley Snipes, executive director of Main Street Greenwood, said a survey of all trees within Greenwood’s parks has been completed.
She introduced Misty Booth from the Mississippi Forestry Commission, who said the survey includes an analysis of the positive economic impact of trees. “Trees aren’t just pretty. They’re actually benefiting you in other ways,” she said.
The Arbor Day Foundation has named Greenwood a Tree City USA Community. Booth said this gives the city access to grant opportunities.
Matt Nielson, a consulting arborist from Oxford, said Greenwood has 384 trees in nine inventoried parks. He called trees “green infrastructure” and said he wants to be proactive with tree maintenance.
- The council tabled a resolution to sell five acres of land in Greenwood’s Industrial Park to KT&T Express LLC.
The land is currently unused and in poor shape and is “not a prime piece of industrial property,” according to Angela Curry, executive director of the Greenwood-Leflore-Carroll Economic Development Foundation.
She said the land is only being used for truck parking at this time. KT&T Express wants to construct a small repair shop.
No neighboring owners had interest in purchasing the land, located across from the Leflore County Vocational School, she said.
Ward 4’s Charles McCoy asked for the issue to be tabled.
He said he is concerned about large trucks tearing up roads that are used by nearby residents.
- Contact Kevin Edwards at 662-581-7233 or kedwards@gwcommonwealth.com.
