House committee resolution 82 presented by District 74 Rep. Mark Baker could bring a change in the representation Mississippi currently holds at the National Statuary Hall in the nation’s Capitol.
The hall holds two statues per each state, with 100 statues total.
Baker’s resolution would replace the statue of James Z. George with a statue of B.B. King.
J.Z. George has gone down in Mississippi history as one of the first signatures on the document of secession when the state pulled away from the Union. George was a confederate colonel, who was captured twice and was held as a prisoner of war. He also served as a member of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890, which is notorious for depriving African-Americans from their right to vote through various taxes and literacy test requirements.
B.B. King, dubbed as the “King of the Blues” hailed from Itta Bena, Mississippi, where he was born in September of 1925. He started recording in the 1940s, and got his first big break on the air with Sonny Boy Williamson’s radio program on KWEM in Memphis. King died May of 2015 in Las Vegas. In his career, he released numerous hits such as “Payin’ The Cost To Be The Boss,” “The Thrill Is Gone,” and “How Blue Can You Get.”
News Mississippi has reached out to Rep. Baker for comment and is awaiting a response.
