[2/12/04]Satellite parking with shuttle service will be the way to reach Saturday’s dedication of the newest monument in Vicksburg National Military Park.

The ceremony is set for 10:30 a.m. on Grant Avenue in the northeast corner of the battlefield preserve created by Congress in 1899. Vehicles will not be allowed to drive to the site.

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, a Vicksburg native, is to speak at the unveiling of what will be the first park monument specifically for U.S. Colored Troops who served in the Civil War.

A reception, from 12:30 until 2 p.m., will follow at the Vicksburg Convention Center, 1600 Mulberry St.

The day’s events will follow a Friday night panel discussion on service by blacks in the Civil War. It is to begin at 6 p.m. at Bethel A.M.E. Church, 805 Monroe St., with history professors and others scheduled to speak and answer questions.

All events are free and open to the public.

People attending the dedication may park at Sherman Avenue Elementary School, about a quarter mile away off Sherman Avenue, or at Warren Central High School, park historian Terry Winschel said. Shuttle-bus service will be available from both locations beginning at 8 a.m., he said.

“Buses will be running continuously until the time of the dedication,” he said. “I would recommend that folks get there early.” The last buses to the site will leave the parking areas about 10:15 a.m.

From the Sherman Avenue parking area, people may also walk to the monument down Howell Lane, he added.

The unveiling will culminate a project begun in 1988 by former Vicksburg Mayor Robert Walker, a professor of history at Jackson State University and the chairman of an 11-member monument committee. The monument has been sculpted by Dr. Kim Sessums of Brookhaven.

The monument will represent “the only one of its kind in a national park commemorating the service of the 200,000 black troops in the Civil War, 10 percent of whom were Mississippians,” a monument committee brochure says.

Crear is the commander and division engineer of the U.S. Army Engineers Division, Southwestern, headquartered in Dallas.

During Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom last year, Crear was the commander of Task Force Restore Iraqi Oil. He has also served as commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Vicksburg District.

The monument will be the first new one at the park since the state of Kentucky unveiled its monument in 2001.

The Blue Grass state was the last of the 28 states legislatively authorized to construct monuments in the park where Union and Confederate forces struggled for control of the city in 1863.

Also during the ceremony, a painting of the monument by artist Kennith Humphreys will be unveiled, Winschel said. Humphreys once worked on the park staff as part of the cemetery maintenance crew while he continued to paint, Winschel said.

“We’re very proud of him,” Winschel said.

The ceremony is scheduled to last 60 to 90 minutes, Winschel said.

Portable toilets and drinking water will be available at the dedication site, he said.

Buses will run only between the parking areas and the dedication site, and not to or from the convention center, Winschel said.

At the convention center during the reception, postmarks with a stamp made to be used only on that day will be available, said Ethel Austin, who coordinates park souvenir sales.

Special commemorative envelopes and postage-stamp arrangements will also be for sale at the convention center and at the park’s visitor’s center off Clay Street beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday, she added.

And Humphreys will be available at the reception to sign T-shirts and posters of his painting, she said.