Medgar Evers

Medgar Evers was the field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the early 1960s. He became one of the first leaders of the nonviolent African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He was killed for his work.

A course in racism

Evers was born on July 2, 1925, and grew up on a small farm in Decatur, Mississippi . It was not an easy place to grow up. The white children in his town made nasty, racial remarks and threw things at him as he walked to school. He remembered seeing the body of a family friend who had been beaten to death by white men.

Even as a child, Evers was determined to rise above the racist environment. He walked twelve miles each way to school every day. After graduating from high school, he joined the army during World War II (1939–45), and served honorably in the war.

When Evers returned to Decatur in 1946, he and his brother Charlie, who had also fought in the war, decided they wanted to vote in the next election, even though whites in the area barred blacks from voting for generations. The Evers brothers registered to vote without incident, but as the election drew near, whites in the area began to threaten their father. When election day came, an armed crowd of about two hundred white Mississippians blocked the Evers brothers from entering the voting place.

Evers and his brother were determined to change things. They joined the NAACP and became active in its ranks. Evers was already busy with NAACP projects when he entered Alcorn A&M College in 1948. He majored in business administration and graduated in 1952. During his senior year, he married a fellow student, Myrlie Beasley (1933–). After graduation, the young couple lived comfortably on his earnings as an insurance salesman.

Mandated change for Mississippi

Evers was astounded by the living conditions of the rural blacks he visited on the job. In 1954, he witnessed an attempted lynching of a black man. Outraged, Evers quit the insurance business and went to work full-time for the NAACP as a chapter organizer. Within two years, he was named state field secretary. Still in his early thirties, he was one of the most vocal and recognizable NAACP members in his state. In his dealings with whites and blacks alike, Evers spoke constantly of the need to overcome hatred and to promote understanding and equality between the races. It was not a message that everyone in Mississippi wanted to hear.

Evers moved with his family to the state capital of Jackson, where he worked closely with black church leaders and other civil rights activists. By 1955, his name was featured on a nine-man death list drawn up by white racists. Telephone threats of violence against Evers and his family were a constant source of anxiety in the Evers home. Evers even taught his children to fall on the floor whenever they heard a strange noise outside in case the sounds were gunshots.

A few weeks prior to his death, someone threw a firebomb at his home. His wife put the fire out with a garden hose, afraid to run for help in case an attacker lay in wait. Not even the threats to his family could deter Evers from making his rounds for voter registration or from petitioning for a biracial (made up of blacks and whites) committee to address social concerns in Jackson. His days were filled with meetings, economic boycotts, marches, prayer vigils, and picket lines—and with bailing out demonstrators arrested by the all-white police force. It was not uncommon for Evers to work twenty hours a day.

A fallen leader

On June 12, 1963, President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) denounced the white resistance to civil rights for blacks, pledging his support to federal action on integration. That night, Evers returned home just after midnight from a series of NAACP functions. As he left his car he was shot in the back. His wife and children found him bleeding to death on the doorstep. He died fifty minutes later at the hospital. He was thirty-seven years old.

The governor of Mississippi and several all-white newspapers offered rewards for information about Evers's murderer. Few came forward with information, but an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uncovered a suspect, Byron de la Beckwith (1920–2001), an outspoken member of a white supremacist group (a group that believes white people should rule over people of all other races). A gun found 150 feet from the site of the shooting had Beckwith's fingerprint on it and he had been seen in Evers's neighborhood the night of the attack. Beckwith, who claimed he was innocent, was tried twice in Mississippi for Evers's murder, once in 1964 and again the following year. Despite strong evidence against him, the all-white juries in both trials ended in deadlock decisions, and Beckwith walked free.

In 1991, more than twenty-five years after Evers's murder, Beckwith was arrested a third time. In 1994, a jury of eight blacks and four whites convicted him of murdering Evers. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Beckwith died in prison in 2001.

The Evers legacy

With his unblinking courage and dedication to the cause of justice and equality, Evers made a huge difference in the civil rights struggle, even though his life was cut short. Upon his death, anger replaced fear in the South; hundreds of demonstrators marched in protest. His death prompted President Kennedy to ask Congress for a comprehensive civil-rights bill, which President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973; served 1963–69) signed into law the following year. (See Civil Rights Act of 1964 .)