Medgar Evers

Guided By Faith

Medgar Evers was one of many leaders of the civil rights movement that leaned heavily on their faith to give them strength against a system fueled by hate, only wishing to harm black Americans and kill them if need be. Those who would do harm to African Americans for seeking dignity and respect as promised by God, were protected by unjust laws and a system that legalized and encouraged racism.

"As long as God gives me strength to work and try to make things real for my children, I'm going to work for it - even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice."

-Medgar Evers

Medgar Evers was an activist and leader of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and early 1960s. He fought in World War II, and was part of the Normandy invasion. When he returned after the war, despite his service, he found barriers to his willingness to live the American Dream he fought for in the war.

He was undeterred. "Evers soon found that his skin color gave him no freedom when he and five friends were forced away at gunpoint from voting in a local election." (NAACP History) Despite this he enrolled in Alcorn State, majoring in business administration. According to the NAACP History site he soon became an activist as the president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a civil rights and pro self-help organization. He led a boycott against filling stations that would not allow Blacks to use their bathrooms. In 1954 he enrolled at the segregated University of Mississippi Law School. The NAACP took up his case and facilitated his enrollment.  In December of 1954, Evers became the NAACP’s first field officer in Mississippi.

Evers, activism made him a target of the segregationists. His public investigations into the murder of Emmett Till and his vocal support of Clyde Kennard left him vulnerable to attack. On May 28, 1963, a molotov cocktail was thrown into the carport of his home, and five days before his death, he was nearly run down by a car after he emerged from the Jackson NAACP office. Civil rights demonstrations accelerated in Jackson during the first week of June 1963. A local television station granted Evers time for a short speech, his first in Mississippi, where he outlined the goals of the Jackson movement. Following the speech, threats on Evers’ life increased.

On June 12, 1963, Evers pulled into his driveway after returning from an integration meeting where he had conferred with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that stated, “Jim Crow Must Go”, Evers was struck in the back with a bullet that ricocheted into his home. He staggered 30 feet before collapsing, dying at the local hospital 50 minutes later. Evers was murdered just hours after President John F. Kennedy’s speech on national television in support of civil rights. (NAACP History) 

His killer, Byron De La Beckwith, was not found guilty until 1994 because the all white jury deadlocked in the first two trials in the 1960's. New evidence found by the FBI in the early 90's led to his conviction. The 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi tells the story of the 1994 trial.