MGCCC renames Gulfport campus to remove name of Confederate president Jefferson Davis
The Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College will no longer honor the Confederate president Jefferson Davis by putting his name on the Gulfport campus.
On July 22, the Board of Trustees voted to change the name to the Harrison County campus.
The change is part of a new strategic plan called Excelerate 2030, “which specifically addresses reviewing all of the names of MGCCC campuses, locations, and facilities to ensure they support and align with the college’s mission, vision and values,” public information coordinator Kathy McAdams said in a statement.
In June, a former teacher at the campus launched a petition to rename the campus. It received over 150 signatures.
“MGCCC, don’t keep a name of a man who wouldn’t have allowed so many of your students to even acquire an education,” the petition said.
The decision to rename the campus comes as people around the state and country have called for the removal of symbols and names honoring the Confederacy and segregationists.
On the Coast, the Harrison County Board of Supervisors is in the process of deciding whether to remove the county’s Confederate monument from courthouse grounds.
A campaign asking NASA to rename the Stennis Space Center, which honors Senator John C. Stennis, a staunch opponent of civil rights and integration, has received national attention.
The Confederate president spent his final years not far from the Harrison County campus. Beauvoir, where Davis wrote his memoir, is just a 10-minute drive from the campus.
By Monday, the campus had not made an announcement on its Facebook page. But it had updated the page and its website with the new name: MGCCC - Harrison County Campus.
