Medgar Evers
Encyclopedia
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American
civil rights
activist
from Mississippi
involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi
. He became active in the civil rights movement after returning from overseas service in World War II and completing secondary education; he became a field secretary for the NAACP.
Evers was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith
, a member of the White Citizens' Council
. As a veteran, Evers was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery
. His murder and the resulting trials inspired civil rights protests, as well as numerous works of art, music, and film.
, the son of Jesse and her husband, James Evers; they owned a small farm and he also worked at a sawmill. Evers was the third of five children, after Charles
and Elizabeth. His sister Ruth was the youngest. The family also included Eva Lee and Gene, Jesse’s children from a prior marriage. After the lynchings of family friends, Evers became determined to get the education he deserved. He walked 12 miles to and from school to earn his high school diploma.
In 1943 Evers and his older brother Charlie were inducted into the army
after the US entered World War II.
Evers fought in the European Theatre of WWII, including in France
. He was honorably discharged in 1945 as a Sergeant. In 1946, he, along with his brother and four friends, returned to his hometown.
In 1948 he enrolled at Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University
), a historically black college, majoring in business administration. In college, he was on the debate team, played football
and ran track
, sang in the school choir
, and served as president of his junior class. He was listed in Who’s Who in American Colleges based on his many accomplishments.
He married classmate Myrlie Beasley
on December 24, 1951, and received his BA degree the following year. They had three children together, two boys and a girl. In 2001, their oldest son, Darrell Kenyatta Evers, died of colon cancer. Their two surviving children are Reena Denise and James Van Evers.
, where T. R. M. Howard
had hired Evers as a salesman for his Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company. Howard was also the president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership
(RCNL), a civil rights and self-help organization. Participation in the RCNL gave Evers crucial training in activism
. He helped to organize the RCNL's boycott
of service stations that denied blacks use of their restrooms. The boycotters distributed bumper sticker
s with the slogan "Don't Buy Gas Where You Can't Use the Restroom." Along with his brother, Charles Evers
, Medgar also attended the RCNL's annual conferences in Mound Bayou between 1952 and 1954, which drew crowds of ten thousand or more.
Evers applied to the then-segregated University of Mississippi
Law School in February 1954. When his application was rejected, Evers filed a lawsuit against the university, and became the focus of an NAACP
campaign to desegregate
the school. The case was strengthened by the United States Supreme Court
ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
(1954) 347 U.S. 483 that segregation was unconstitutional. That same year, due to his involvement, the NAACP's National Office suggested Evers become Mississippi’s first field secretary for the NAACP.
through his attempt to enroll, succeeding in 1962.
Segregationist protesters collected at the campus, where they rioted after Meredith was admitted. Two people died, and hundreds were wounded, and the federal government sent in the National Guard and regular troops to restore order.
Evers’ civil rights leadership and investigative work made him a target of white supremacists. In the weeks leading up to his death, the hostility directed towards him grew. His public investigations into the murder of Emmett Till
and his vocal support of Clyde Kennard
had made him a prominent black leader. On May 28, 1963, a Molotov cocktail
was thrown into the carport of his home. On June 7 1963, Evers was nearly run down by a car after he emerged from the Jackson NAACP
office.
's speech on national television in support of civil rights, Evers pulled into his driveway after returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that read "Jim Crow
Must Go," Evers was struck in the back with a bullet fired from an Enfield 1917 rifle; it ricocheted into his home. He staggered 9 meters (30 feet) before collapsing. He died at a local hospital 50 minutes later.
Mourned nationally, Evers was buried on June 19 in Arlington National Cemetery
, where he received full military honors
in front of a crowd of more than 3000 people.
On June 23, 1964, Byron De La Beckwith
, a fertilizer salesman and member of the White Citizens' Council
(and later of the Ku Klux Klan
), was arrested for Evers' murder.
Juries composed solely of white men twice that year deadlocked
on De La Beckwith's guilt.
In 1994, 30 years after the two previous trials had failed to reach a verdict
, De La Beckwith was brought to trial based on new evidence. Bobby DeLaughter
took on the job as the prosecutor. During the trial, the body of Evers was exhumed from his grave for autopsy
. De La Beckwith was convicted of murder on February 5, 1994, after having lived as a free man for much of the three decades following the killing (though he was imprisoned on an unrelated charge from 1977 to 1980). De La Beckwith appealed unsuccessfully, and died at age 80 in prison in January 2001.
, James Baldwin
, Margaret Walker
and Anne Moody
. In 1969, Medgar Evers College
was established in Brooklyn, New York as part of the City University of New York
. In 1983, a made-for-television movie
, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story
starring Howard Rollins, Jr.
and Irene Cara
as Medgar and Myrlie Evers aired on PBS
, celebrating the life and career of Medgar Evers. On June 28, 1992, the city of Jackson, Mississippi erected a statue in honor of Evers. All of Delta Drive (part of U.S. Highway 49) in Jackson was renamed in Evers' honor. In December 2004, the Jackson City Council changed the name of the city's airport to Jackson-Evers International Airport
in honor of him.
Evers's widow, Myrlie, became a noted activist in her own right later in life, eventually serving as chair of the NAACP. Medgar's brother Charles returned to Jackson in July 1963 and served briefly in his slain brother's place. Charles Evers remained involved in Mississippi civil rights activities for years to come. He resides in Jackson.
40 years to the day after Evers' assassination, hundreds of civil rights veterans, government officials, and students from across the country gathered around his grave site at Arlington National Cemetery to celebrate his life and legacy. Barry Bradford and three students - Sharmistha Dev, Jajah Wu and Debra Siegel, formerly of Adlai E. Stevenson High School (located in Lincolnshire
, northwest of Chicago) - planned and hosted the commemoration in his honor. Evers was the subject of the students' research project.
In October 2009, Navy
Secretary
Ray Mabus
, a former Mississippi
governor
, announced that , a , would be named in the activist's honor. The ship was christened by Myrlie Evans on November 12, 2011.
wrote his 1963 song "Only a Pawn in Their Game
" about Evers and his assassin. Nina Simone
wrote and sang "Mississippi Goddam
". Phil Ochs
wrote the songs, "Too Many Martyrs" and "Another Country," in response to the killing. Matthew Jones
and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Freedom Singers paid tribute to Evers in the haunting "Ballad of Medgar Evers." Eudora Welty's
short story "Where is the Voice Coming From," in which the speaker is the imagined assassin of Medgar Evers, was published in The New Yorker. Rex Stout
used the event as a plot device in his civil rights-themed mystery A Right to Die
.
Malvina Reynolds
mentioned "the shot in Evers' back" in her 1964 song "It Isn't Nice", and in 1965, Jackson C. Frank
included the lyrics, "But there aren't words to bring back Evers" in his tribute to the civil rights movement, "Don't Look Back," on his only album
.
Medgar Evers' story is the inspiration for a 1991 episode of the NBC TV series In the Heat of the Night
, entitled Sweet, Sweet Blues
, written by author William James Royce
. The story tells of a 40-year-old murder of a young black man and the elderly white man, played by actor James Best
, who seems to have gotten away with murder. (It preceded the trial that convicted Beckwith by several years.) In the Heat of the Night won its first NAACP Image Award
for Best Dramatic Series that season.
The 1996 film
Ghosts of Mississippi
, directed by Rob Reiner
, tells the story of the 1994 retrial of Beckwith, in which prosecutor DeLaughter of the US District Attorney's
office secured a conviction in federal court. Beckwith and DeLaughter were played by James Woods
and Alec Baldwin
, respectively; Whoopi Goldberg
played Myrlie Evers. Evers was portrayed by James Pickens Jr..
Robert DeLaughter
wrote a first person narrative article titled "Mississippi Justice" published in Reader's Digest and a book Never Too Late.
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
civil rights
African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...
activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
from Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
. He became active in the civil rights movement after returning from overseas service in World War II and completing secondary education; he became a field secretary for the NAACP.
Evers was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith, Jr. was an American white supremacist and Klansman from Greenwood, Mississippi who was convicted in the 1994 state trial of assassinating the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963....
, a member of the White Citizens' Council
White Citizens' Council
The White Citizens' Council was an American white supremacist organization formed on July 11, 1954. After 1956, it was known as the Citizens' Councils of America...
. As a veteran, Evers was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...
. His murder and the resulting trials inspired civil rights protests, as well as numerous works of art, music, and film.
Life
Medgar Wiley Evers was born July 2, 1925 in Decatur, MississippiDecatur, Mississippi
Decatur is a town in Newton County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,426 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Newton County...
, the son of Jesse and her husband, James Evers; they owned a small farm and he also worked at a sawmill. Evers was the third of five children, after Charles
Charles Evers
James Charles Evers is a prominent American civil rights advocate. The older brother of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, Charles Evers is a leading civil rights spokesman within the Republican Party in his native Mississippi. In 1969 he became the first African American since the...
and Elizabeth. His sister Ruth was the youngest. The family also included Eva Lee and Gene, Jesse’s children from a prior marriage. After the lynchings of family friends, Evers became determined to get the education he deserved. He walked 12 miles to and from school to earn his high school diploma.
In 1943 Evers and his older brother Charlie were inducted into the army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
after the US entered World War II.
Evers fought in the European Theatre of WWII, including in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He was honorably discharged in 1945 as a Sergeant. In 1946, he, along with his brother and four friends, returned to his hometown.
In 1948 he enrolled at Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University
Alcorn State University
Alcorn State University is an historically black university comprehensive land-grant institution in Lorman, Mississippi. It was founded in 1871-History:...
), a historically black college, majoring in business administration. In college, he was on the debate team, played football
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
and ran track
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
, sang in the school choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, and served as president of his junior class. He was listed in Who’s Who in American Colleges based on his many accomplishments.
He married classmate Myrlie Beasley
Myrlie Evers-Williams
SynopsisEarly LifeLife with MedgarMedgar Evers MurderLife After Medgar'NAACP/ HonorsAccomplishmentsWhoopi Goldberg played her in Ghosts of Mississippi...
on December 24, 1951, and received his BA degree the following year. They had three children together, two boys and a girl. In 2001, their oldest son, Darrell Kenyatta Evers, died of colon cancer. Their two surviving children are Reena Denise and James Van Evers.
Activism
The couple moved to Mound Bayou, MississippiMound Bayou, Mississippi
Mound Bayou is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi. The population was 2,102 at the 2000 census. It is notable for having been founded as an independent black community in 1887 by former slaves led by Isaiah Montgomery. By percentage, its 98.4 percent African-American majority population is one...
, where T. R. M. Howard
T. R. M. Howard
Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard was an American civil rights leader, fraternal organization leader, entrepreneur and surgeon...
had hired Evers as a salesman for his Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company. Howard was also the president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership
Regional Council of Negro Leadership
The Regional Council of Negro Leadership was a society in Mississippi founded by T. R. M. Howard in 1951 to promote a program of civil rights, self-help, and business ownership...
(RCNL), a civil rights and self-help organization. Participation in the RCNL gave Evers crucial training in activism
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
. He helped to organize the RCNL's boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
of service stations that denied blacks use of their restrooms. The boycotters distributed bumper sticker
Bumper sticker
A bumper sticker is an adhesive label or sticker with a message, intended to be attached to the bumper of an automobile and to be read by the occupants of other vehicles - although they are often stuck onto other objects...
s with the slogan "Don't Buy Gas Where You Can't Use the Restroom." Along with his brother, Charles Evers
Charles Evers
James Charles Evers is a prominent American civil rights advocate. The older brother of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, Charles Evers is a leading civil rights spokesman within the Republican Party in his native Mississippi. In 1969 he became the first African American since the...
, Medgar also attended the RCNL's annual conferences in Mound Bayou between 1952 and 1954, which drew crowds of ten thousand or more.
Evers applied to the then-segregated University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
Law School in February 1954. When his application was rejected, Evers filed a lawsuit against the university, and became the focus of an NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
campaign to desegregate
Desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
the school. The case was strengthened by the United States Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...
(1954) 347 U.S. 483 that segregation was unconstitutional. That same year, due to his involvement, the NAACP's National Office suggested Evers become Mississippi’s first field secretary for the NAACP.
NAACP field secretary
On November 24, 1954, Evers was appointed Mississippi’s first field secretary. President of the NAACP Mississippi State Conference and civil rights activist, E.J. Stringer, helped him gain this position. Evers was involved in a boycott campaign against white merchants. He was instrumental in eventually desegregating the University of Mississippi by mentoring James MeredithJames Meredith
James H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President...
through his attempt to enroll, succeeding in 1962.
Segregationist protesters collected at the campus, where they rioted after Meredith was admitted. Two people died, and hundreds were wounded, and the federal government sent in the National Guard and regular troops to restore order.
Evers’ civil rights leadership and investigative work made him a target of white supremacists. In the weeks leading up to his death, the hostility directed towards him grew. His public investigations into the murder of Emmett Till
Emmett Till
Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois visiting his relatives in the Mississippi Delta region when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married...
and his vocal support of Clyde Kennard
Clyde Kennard
Clyde Kennard was a Civil Rights pioneer and martyr, born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In the 1950s, he attempted several times to enroll at Mississippi Southern College to complete his undergraduate degree started at University of Chicago...
had made him a prominent black leader. On May 28, 1963, a Molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
was thrown into the carport of his home. On June 7 1963, Evers was nearly run down by a car after he emerged from the Jackson NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
office.
Assassination
In the early morning of June 12, 1963, just hours after President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's speech on national television in support of civil rights, Evers pulled into his driveway after returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that read "Jim Crow
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
Must Go," Evers was struck in the back with a bullet fired from an Enfield 1917 rifle; it ricocheted into his home. He staggered 9 meters (30 feet) before collapsing. He died at a local hospital 50 minutes later.
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...
, where he received full military honors
Military funeral
A military funeral is a specially orchestrated funeral given by a country's military for a soldier, sailor, marine or airman who died in battle, a veteran, or other prominent military figures or heads of state. A military funeral may feature guards of honor, the firing of volley shots as a salute,...
in front of a crowd of more than 3000 people.
Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith, Jr. was an American white supremacist and Klansman from Greenwood, Mississippi who was convicted in the 1994 state trial of assassinating the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963....
, a fertilizer salesman and member of the White Citizens' Council
White Citizens' Council
The White Citizens' Council was an American white supremacist organization formed on July 11, 1954. After 1956, it was known as the Citizens' Councils of America...
(and later of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
), was arrested for Evers' murder.
Juries composed solely of white men twice that year deadlocked
Hung jury
A hung jury or deadlocked jury is a jury that cannot, by the required voting threshold, agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.- England and Wales :...
on De La Beckwith's guilt.
In 1994, 30 years after the two previous trials had failed to reach a verdict
Verdict
In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. The term, from the Latin veredictum, literally means "to say the truth" and is derived from Middle English verdit, from Anglo-Norman: a compound of ver and dit In law, a verdict...
, De La Beckwith was brought to trial based on new evidence. Bobby DeLaughter
Bobby DeLaughter
Robert "Bobby" DeLaughter is an American Mississippi state prosecutor, judge, and author. He is notable for prosecuting and securing the conviction in 1994 of Byron De La Beckwith, charged with the murder of the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963...
took on the job as the prosecutor. During the trial, the body of Evers was exhumed from his grave for autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
. De La Beckwith was convicted of murder on February 5, 1994, after having lived as a free man for much of the three decades following the killing (though he was imprisoned on an unrelated charge from 1977 to 1980). De La Beckwith appealed unsuccessfully, and died at age 80 in prison in January 2001.
Legacy
Evers' legacy has been kept alive in a variety of ways. The writer Minrose Gwin notes that after his death, Evers was memorialized by leading Mississippi and national authors, both black and white: Eudora WeltyEudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...
, James Baldwin
James Baldwin
James Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist and civil rights activist.James Baldwin may also refer to:-Writers:*James Baldwin , American educator, writer and administrator...
, Margaret Walker
Margaret Walker
Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander was an African-American poet and writer. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she wrote as Margaret Walker. One of her best-known poems is For My People.-Biography:...
and Anne Moody
Anne Moody
Anne Moody is an African-American author who has written about her experiences growing up poor and black in rural Mississippi, joining the Civil Rights Movement, and fighting racism against blacks in the United States beginning in the 1960s-Life:Born Essie Mae Moody, she was the oldest of nine...
. In 1969, Medgar Evers College
Medgar Evers College
Medgar Evers College is a senior college of The City University of New York.Medgar Evers College was officially established in 1970 through cooperation from educators and community leaders in central Brooklyn...
was established in Brooklyn, New York as part of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
. In 1983, a made-for-television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story
For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story
For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story is a made-for-television biopic that aired on PBS on March 22, 1983. The film was based on the book, For Us, the Living, by Myrlie Evers-Williams and William Peters.-Synopsis:...
starring Howard Rollins, Jr.
Howard Rollins
Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr. was an American television, film, and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker, Jr...
and Irene Cara
Irene Cara
Irene Cara is an American singer and actress. Cara won an Academy Award in 1984 in the category of Best Original Song for co-writing "Flashdance... What a Feeling." She is also known for her recording of the song "Fame", and she also starred in the 1980 film Fame.She married Hollywood stuntman...
as Medgar and Myrlie Evers aired on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, celebrating the life and career of Medgar Evers. On June 28, 1992, the city of Jackson, Mississippi erected a statue in honor of Evers. All of Delta Drive (part of U.S. Highway 49) in Jackson was renamed in Evers' honor. In December 2004, the Jackson City Council changed the name of the city's airport to Jackson-Evers International Airport
Jackson-Evers International Airport
Jackson-Evers International Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport located in Jackson, Mississippi, five nautical miles east of the central business district of Jackson, across the Pearl River....
in honor of him.
Evers's widow, Myrlie, became a noted activist in her own right later in life, eventually serving as chair of the NAACP. Medgar's brother Charles returned to Jackson in July 1963 and served briefly in his slain brother's place. Charles Evers remained involved in Mississippi civil rights activities for years to come. He resides in Jackson.
40 years to the day after Evers' assassination, hundreds of civil rights veterans, government officials, and students from across the country gathered around his grave site at Arlington National Cemetery to celebrate his life and legacy. Barry Bradford and three students - Sharmistha Dev, Jajah Wu and Debra Siegel, formerly of Adlai E. Stevenson High School (located in Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, northwest of Chicago) - planned and hosted the commemoration in his honor. Evers was the subject of the students' research project.
In October 2009, Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
Secretary
United States Secretary of the Navy
The Secretary of the Navy of the United States of America is the head of the Department of the Navy, a component organization of the Department of Defense...
Ray Mabus
Ray Mabus
Raymond Edwin "Ray" Mabus, Jr. is the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy. Mabus served as the 60th Governor of the U.S...
, a former Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
governor
Governor
A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
, announced that , a , would be named in the activist's honor. The ship was christened by Myrlie Evans on November 12, 2011.
In popular culture
The murder and subsequent trials caused an uproar. Musician Bob DylanBob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
wrote his 1963 song "Only a Pawn in Their Game
Only a Pawn in Their Game
"Only a Pawn in their Game" is a song written by Bob Dylan about the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. It was released on Dylan's The Times They Are a-Changin album of 1964...
" about Evers and his assassin. Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
wrote and sang "Mississippi Goddam
Mississippi Goddam
Mississippi Goddam is a song written and performed by United States singer and pianist Nina Simone. It was first released on her album Nina Simone in Concert which was based on recordings of three concerts she gave at Carnegie Hall in 1964...
". Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
wrote the songs, "Too Many Martyrs" and "Another Country," in response to the killing. Matthew Jones
Matthew Jones (civil rights activist)
Matthew Jones was an African-American folk singer/songwriter known for being a field secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and part of their The Freedom Singers in the 1960s....
and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
Freedom Singers paid tribute to Evers in the haunting "Ballad of Medgar Evers." Eudora Welty's
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...
short story "Where is the Voice Coming From," in which the speaker is the imagined assassin of Medgar Evers, was published in The New Yorker. Rex Stout
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...
used the event as a plot device in his civil rights-themed mystery A Right to Die
A Right to Die
A Right to Die is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1964.-Plot summary:The novel is set against the background of the Civil Rights Act conflict in the Johnson Administration...
.
Malvina Reynolds
Malvina Reynolds
Malvina Reynolds was an American folk/blues singer-songwriter and political activist, best known for her song-writing, particularly the songs "Little Boxes" and "Morningtown Ride".-Early life:...
mentioned "the shot in Evers' back" in her 1964 song "It Isn't Nice", and in 1965, Jackson C. Frank
Jackson C. Frank
Jackson Carey Frank was an American folk musician.-Early life:When Jackson Frank was 11, a furnace exploded at his school, sending a ball of flames down corridors until it ended up in Frank's music classroom in the Cleveland Hill Elementary School in Cheektowaga, New York...
included the lyrics, "But there aren't words to bring back Evers" in his tribute to the civil rights movement, "Don't Look Back," on his only album
Jackson C. Frank (album)
Jackson C. Frank is the 1965 self-titled album by Jackson C. Frank, released by Columbia . It was produced by Paul Simon, and both Al Stewart and Art Garfunkel attended the recording. Frank was apparently so nervous at the time that, in order to play and sing, he had to have screens around him...
.
Medgar Evers' story is the inspiration for a 1991 episode of the NBC TV series In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night (TV series)
In the Heat of the Night is a television series based on the motion picture and novel of the same name. It was broadcast on NBC from 1988 until 1992, and then on CBS until 1995...
, entitled Sweet, Sweet Blues
Sweet, Sweet Blues
"Sweet, Sweet Blues" is an award winning episode of the NBC drama series In the Heat of the Night, starring Carroll O'Connor as Chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Detective Virgil Tibbs.In the Heat of the Night was based on the 1965 novel by John Ball, which was also the basis for the...
, written by author William James Royce
William James Royce
- Career :TelevisionWilliam Royce began his television career writing for the NBC television series In the Heat of the Night, starring Emmy Award winning actor Carroll O'Connor as Chief William O. Gillespie and Academy Award nominee Howard Rollins as Detective Virgil Tibbs...
. The story tells of a 40-year-old murder of a young black man and the elderly white man, played by actor James Best
James Best
James Best is an American actor best known for his role as bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the CBS television series The Dukes of Hazzard. He has also worked as an acting coach, artist, and musician.-Early years:...
, who seems to have gotten away with murder. (It preceded the trial that convicted Beckwith by several years.) In the Heat of the Night won its first NAACP Image Award
NAACP Image Award
An NAACP Image Award is an accolade presented by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....
for Best Dramatic Series that season.
The 1996 film
1996 in film
Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:...
Ghosts of Mississippi
Ghosts of Mississippi
Ghosts of Mississippi is a 1996 American drama film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, and James Woods. The plot is based on the true story of the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, the white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist...
, directed by Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner
Robert "Rob" Reiner is an American actor, director, producer, writer, and political activist.As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence as Archie and Edith Bunker's son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic, on All in the Family. That role earned him two Emmy Awards during the 1970s...
, tells the story of the 1994 retrial of Beckwith, in which prosecutor DeLaughter of the US District Attorney's
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
office secured a conviction in federal court. Beckwith and DeLaughter were played by James Woods
James Woods
James Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
and Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
, respectively; Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
played Myrlie Evers. Evers was portrayed by James Pickens Jr..
Robert DeLaughter
Bobby DeLaughter
Robert "Bobby" DeLaughter is an American Mississippi state prosecutor, judge, and author. He is notable for prosecuting and securing the conviction in 1994 of Byron De La Beckwith, charged with the murder of the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963...
wrote a first person narrative article titled "Mississippi Justice" published in Reader's Digest and a book Never Too Late.
Audio material
External links
- Gwin, Minrose. "Mourning Medgar: Justice, Aesthetics, and the Local" March 11, 2008. Southern Spaces http://southernspaces.org/2008/mourning-medgar-justice-aesthetics-and-local
- Medgar Evers in the U.S. Federal Census American Civil Rights Pioneers
- Medgar Evers biography at africawithin.com
- http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0251350/bio Retrieved on February 22, 2010