Gillespie V. "Sonny" Montgomery

Sonny Montgomery's name is on the education benefit used by veterans of the all-volunteer force. In 1981, as new chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, he pushed for a new GI Bill to ease a recruiting slump, noting that nearly half of recent recruits lacked high-school diplomas. He had served in World War II with the 12th Armored Division and in Korea, and he retired from the Mississippi National Guard as a major general. He chaired the committee until 1995, left Congress in 1997, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 and is buried at Magnolia Cemetery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Jimmie Rodgers Museum — 1.2 mi
  The museum in Meridian that holds the guitar of the Singing Brakeman, Jimmie Rodgers, the first inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
• Highland Park Dentzel Carousel — 1.2 mi
  The last two-row stationary Dentzel menagerie in the world, in its original carousel house in Meridian's Highland Park, a National Historic Landmark since 1987.
• Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience — 1.6 mi
  Meridian's two-level museum of Mississippi artists and entertainers, opened in 2018, with a Hall of Fame and a Walk of Fame that leads to it from the Riley Center.
• Meridian Civil Rights Trail — 1.6 mi
  An 18-stop self-guided trail through Meridian, from the Black business district and the 1964 Freedom Summer office to Wechsler School, the federal courthouse and James Chaney's grave.

More markers nearby

• Wechsler School — 1.1 mi
• Carnegie Branch Library for Blacks — 1.1 mi
• Merrehope — 1.4 mi
• Temple Theater — 1.4 mi