Civil rights icon Aaron Henry gets honor on Mississippi Freedom Trail

Aaron Henry
Aaron Henry
Aaron Henry

CLARKSDALE, Mississippi (AP) — Civil rights icon and former legislator Aaron Henry will be honored Wednesday with a marker on the Mississippi Freedom Trail.

The dedication will be 11:30 a.m. Wednesday in Clarksdale at the former site of Henry’s Fourth Street Drug Store, once the only black-owned drugstore in the area and a hub of political and civil rights planning for three decades.

Henry died in 1997 at the age of 74. Henry served in the Mississippi House from 1980-96, fighting for improved health care and housing for the poor. He was president of the Mississippi NAACP for 33 years.

He was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which sought to unseat an all-white delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

The Freedom Trail commemorates the state’s Civil Rights heritage.