Two Brooklyn subway stations renamed after civil rights figure Medgar Evers
Two Crown Heights subway stations now bear the name of civil rights martyr Medgar Evers, the namesake of a nearby college and prep school.
MTA leaders and politicians officially tacked on “Medgar Evers College” to the names of the Franklin Avenue and President Street stops on Thursday, following through on state legislation passed earlier this year.
The two stations are now called “Franklin Avenue-Medgar Evers College” and “President Street-Medgar Evers College.”
“Before there was a Breonna Taylor, before there was an Eric Garner, before there was a George Floyd, there was Medgar Evers,” bill co-sponsor state Sen. Zelnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) said during a press conference Thursday afternoon.
Evers, a leader in the Mississippi NAACP, was shot dead in his driveway by a white supremacist on June 12, 1963.
City leaders founded Medgar Evers college seven years later to serve the predominantly-black Central Brooklyn community.
“If you grew up in this neighborhood… you either went to Medgar Evers, you know somebody that went to Medgar Evers, you went to a program that Medgar Evers sponsored,” Myrie said.
“I’m excited, because it will remind us who have been here, but it will be a lesson to those who are coming in, that when you traverse these blocks, make sure you pay respect or our OGs.”