Historical Spotlight: Medgar Evers
Going to school without fear of being targeted solely based on your race is a modern luxury that many fought and lost their lives for. Desegregation created volatile and oftentimes deadly mobs that stood in the way of integration of public schools and institutions. The Little Rock Nine were one example of just how dangerous integration actually was for many young Black Americans pursuing an education. Join me as we shine a Historical Spotlight on Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist who fought for change in Mississippi.
Medgar was born on July 2, 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi to his parents Jesse and James Evers. He was the third of five children, and the family owned a small farm to sustain themselves. The children walked 12 miles a day to attend segregated schools, and Medgar eventually earned his high school diploma.
In 1943, he enlisted in the Army at 17 years old after experiencing much unresolved racism at home and hearing encouraging stories from his brother about his prior stint in the Army. He served in the 657th Port Company, a segregated unit of the Army’s Transportation Corp and participated in the Normandy landings in June 1944. During his time in the Army, he was angered by the reality of segregation and mistreatment endured by Black American troops. He was discharged in 1946 with a promise to straighten out the injustices he witnessed.
He enrolled at Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1948. He majored in business administration, was involved in the debate, football, and track teams, and was even elected as junior class president. He graduated with his Bachelor’s degree in 1952.
On December 24, 1951, Medgar married his classmate Myrlie Beasley and together had three children named Darrell Kenyatta, Reena Denise, and James Van Dyke Evers. The couple moved to Mound Bayou, Mississippi, a predominantly Black town developed after the Civil War, where Medgar originally became a salesman for the Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Over time, he became more and more active in the civil rights movement, eventually serving as president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), an organization focused on ending segregation. Medgar helped organize the boycott of gas stations that denied Black people the use of the stations’ restrooms and attended the annual conferences that drew crowds of more than 10,000 people.
After the Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional in 1954, Medgar applied to the University of Mississippi Law School to challenge the ruling. His application was rejected due to his race, but was submitted as part of a case to set a precedent by the NAACP.
On November 24, 1954, Medgar was named as the NAACP’s first field secretary for Mississippi. Through his position, he helped organize boycotts, set up new local chapters of the NAACP, and was even involved with James Meredith’s enrollment to the University of Mississippi as the first Black American student admitted in the early 1960’s. He led voter registration drives, worked to integrate Leake County schools, the Mississippi State Fair, privately owned buses in Jackson, and public parks. He also encouraged Dr. Gilbert Mason Sr. during the Biloxi wade-ins protest to segregated public beaches on the Mississippi Gulf Coast from 1959 to 1963.
He wasn’t afraid to speak out against the injustices he witnessed. He publicly investigated the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till and vocally supported Clyde Kennard’s attempts to enroll in the segregated Mississippi Southern College to complete his undergraduate degree.
While his extensive activism made him into a prominent black leader, unfortunately it also made him a target for many of the violent mobs who didn’t want to see integration or change happen. He faced a lot of hostility and lived with constant death threats.
A local white supremacist group called the White Citizens’ Council was founded in Mississippi following the Brown v. Board of Education decision. There was a large population of the Ku Klux Klan in Jackson and its suburbs that were an ever present threat to the family and any other prominent Black leader.
On May 28, 1963, a molotov cocktail was thrown into the carport of his home. Not even a month later, on June 7, 1963, he was almost run over by a car after leaving the NAACP office in Jackson, Mississippi. The threats became so frequent and dangerous that Medgar and Myrlie trained their children on what to do in case of a shooting, bombing, or other kind of attack.
Given these risks, he was usually followed home by at least two FBI cars and a local police car, but on the day of his death, his normal protection wasn’t there. Neither the FBI or local police have provided a substantial reasoning for the absence, but there has been speculation that many members of the police force at the time were members of the Klan.
In the early morning of Wednesday, June 12, 1963, just hours after President John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address, Medgar returned home from a meeting with NAACP lawyers. Both him and his family worried for his safety that day, and their worries came true at their family home. After getting out of his car, he was shot in the back and the bullet passed through his heart.
The impact of the shot knocked him down, but he rose and staggered 30 feet before collapsing outside his front door. Myrlie was the first to find him, and immediately rushed him to a local hospital in Jackson. Unfortunately, he was initially refused entry because of his race, but after his family explained who he was, he was finally admitted. Medgar died in the hospital 50 minutes later, making history as the first Black man to be admitted to an all-white hospital in Mississippi.
He was buried on June 19 in Arlington National Cemetery, where he received full military honors before a crowd of more than 3,000 people. After his assassination, an estimated 5,000 people marched from the Masonic Temple on Lynch Street to the Collins Funeral Home on North Farish Street in Jackson. Unfortunately, the Mississippi police showed up to the non-violent protest armed with riot gear and rifles, adding to an already tumultuous situation.
On June 21, 1963, Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the Citizens’ Council and Ku Klux Klan, was arrested for Medgar’s murder. He was tried in February and April 1964, but both all-white juries failed to reach a verdict. Despite this setback, Myrlie didn’t stop fighting for the conviction of her husband’s killer. She waited until a new judge had been assigned to take her case back into the courtroom.
After living as a free man for most of the three decades following Medgar’s death, Byron was tried again in 1994 based on new evidence found after exhuming Medgar’s body for an autopsy. He was finally convicted of murder on February 5, 1994 and was sentenced to life in prison. He attempted to appeal his conviction in 1997, but the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the judgment. He died in prison on January 21, 2001 at the age of 80.
Medgar’s life was cut ridiculously short at the young age of 37 because of irrational hatred. His family lost their husband, dad, son and the Black community lost a prominent voice leading the charge for change. He leaves behind an admirable legacy of fighting against segregation and other injustices to create a better society for Black Americans.
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Signed,
Jessica Marie
