NATCHEZ, Miss. (AP) The National Register of Historic Places now includes the home of a Mississippi civil rights advocate who was killed in a 1967 firebombing.
The Natchez home of Wharlest Jackson Sr. and his late wife, Exerlena, was added to the register June 6.
Wharlest Jackson Jr. owns the home with his sister Denise Ford. He tells the Natchez Democrat that, like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., his father paid “the ultimate price” for freedom.
Wharlest Jackson Sr. was treasurer of the Natchez NAACP.
In February 1967, he accepted a promotion at Armstrong Tire and Rubber Company to a job that had only been held by white men. Shortly after that, a bomb exploded in his truck. The case remains unsolved.
The family could open the home for tours.
