EVERS, MEDGAR WILEY
Shortly before his death, CIVIL RIGHTS activist Medgar Wiley Evers was described in the New York Times as the movement’s “quiet integrationist.” Although his contemporary MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. achieved greater fame for organizing nonviolent demonstrations and boycotts, Evers was an equally dedicated reformer,
whose reports of civil rights abuses in Missis-
sippi helped to force social and political changes
in the Deep South.
From 1954 to 1963, Evers was state field sec-
retary for the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Courageous, methodical, and devoted to his
work, Evers sought to dismantle a decades-old
system of SEGREGATION. His approach was to
create public outrage over the treatment of
African Americans by documenting cases of
brutality and injustice. Although Evers fought
tirelessly against discriminatory laws and con-
duct, he rejected violence as a means of improv-
ing the plight of his people.
By antagonizing powerful white suprema-
cists, Evers put himself in constant danger in his
home state. When he was shot and killed by a
sniper on June 12, 1963, many Mississippians
were not surprised. Upon his death, Evers
became an early martyr in the African American
struggle for equal rights. More than thirty years
later, when Byron de la Beckwith finally was
convicted of Evers’s assassination, Evers became
a symbol of U.S. justice—delayed, but not
denied.
Evers was born July 2, 1925, in Decatur,Mis-
sissippi, the younger of two sons born to James
Evers, a sawmill worker, and Jessie Evers, a
devout Christian who encouraged young
Medgar to succeed. The Evers family was hard-
working but poor. Townspeople remember
Evers as an upright, sympathetic young man
who chafed under the inequities of segregation.
During WORLD WAR II, Evers served in an
all–African-American unit of the U.S. Army.
Although the military’s racial policies infuriated
him, he fought with distinction and was deco-
rated for his bravery in the Normandy Invasion.
During his tour of duty, Evers experienced in
Europe a more tolerant, racially integrated soci-
ety, which inspired his hope for changes in his
native Mississippi.
After the war, Evers attended Mississippi’s
Alcorn A&M College, where he participated in
football, track, debate, and choir.He also met his
future wife, Myrlie Evers, with whom he had
three children. After graduation, Evers worked
as a sales agent for Magnolia Mutual, an African
American–owned life insurance company.
Assigned a rural territory, Evers witnessed
African American poverty and debasement on
such a large scale that he could no longer abide
Mississippi’s RACIAL DISCRIMINATION.He took
a job with the NAACP in 1954, determined to
