Brooklyn Subway Stations Will Bear Medgar Evers' Name

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A racist assassin's bullet cut short Medgar Evers' life, but the civil rights leader's legacy lives on in Crown Heights.

His name adorns Medgar Evers College and — starting this fall — a pair of subway stations serving the historically Black college and its surrounding neighborhood.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday the stations will be renamed Franklin Avenue-Medgar Evers College and President Street-Medgar Evers College.

"By renaming these subway stations in honor the College, New York is not only celebrating a historic figure and institution, but embracing our diversity, which will always be our greatest strength, in our public spaces," Cuomo said in a statement.

Evers worked as a Black NAACP activist in Mississippi during the civil rights era who, among other actions, organized protests against segregation. A Klansman and white supremacist named Byron Beckwith gunned Evers down in 1963.

Beckwith eluded justice for decades before he was finally convicted of murder in 1994. When Beckwith died behind bars, Evers' legacy lived on in the collapse of Jim Crow laws and segregation, landmark civil rights legislation and, in Brooklyn, a college bearing his name.

It's a CUNY school from which state Assembly Member Diana Richardson graduated. She, along with state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, pushed to rename the subway stations and lined up a $250,000 grant for the project, according to a release.

"I am extremely proud and honored as both an alumnus of Medgar Evers College and a lifelong resident of the Crown Heights community to have helped author the legislation that renamed these subway stops in honor of the great civil rights leader, Medgar Evers," Richardson said in a statement. "That this is happening during this critical period of change in our nation's history is serendipitous. I am confident that the community will join me in celebrating this well-deserved recognition of the college and its namesake."

Like Richardson, Myrie tied the renaming to a larger movement protesting structural racism, police brutality and other civil rights issues following the killing of George Floyd.

"Never has the history and legacy of Medgar Evers felt more alive than during this movement for justice and never has there been a better time to honor his legacy," he said in a statement. "As we literally put one of our most cherished institutions on the map, we honor Medgar Evers' life of service to black people and to our country and recommit to continuing his work today."

The Franklin Avenue and President Street stations have service for the 2/3/4/5/S lines and 2/5 lines, respectively.

Cuomo signed the bill to change the stations' names, according to a release. MTA will begin work starting this month and update maps, signs and other subway materials over the summer, the release states.

The stations will formally be renamed in the fall.