Medgar+Evers

  Medgar Wiley Evers was born in Decatur, Mississippi on July 2, 1925. When he was 17 years old, he dropped out of high school and enlisted in the U.S Army along with his brother Charlie Evers. At the age of 19 he was honorably discharged as a Sergent. He fought in Europe during World War II. He returned home in 1946 with his brother and four friends, and also registered to vote in a local election. On voting day, local white citizens used intimidation tactics to prevent him and other blacks from casting their votes.

Evers attended Alcorn Agricultural College (now known as [|Alcorn State University]) and majored in business administration. He participated in many school activities. While attending Alcorn Agricultural College, he met and married his wife Myrlie. He became an insurance salesman in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and at the same time joined the NAACP and began organizing for them. In 1954, he quit his insurance job and attempted to enter the University of Mississippi law school.He was rejected by the then all-white institution and was promptly appointed by the NAACP to be its first field secretary in the state.

As field secretary, he was involved in voter registration, boycotts, and anti-lynching campaigns along with some other things. His work on behalf of [|Emmett Till], a black kid who was lynched for whistling at a white lady, drew particular notice. He also strived to help [|James Meredith] become the first black man admitted to the [|University of Mississippi] and organized an economic boycott of downtown Jackson by blacks. He was one of the most famous martyr of the civil rights movement before the deaths of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

On June 12, 1963, just hours after President John F. Kennedy's speech on national television in support of civil rights, Medgar Evers was shot in the back as he walked from his car to his house. His wife and 3 children found him in a pool of blood, clutching anti-Jim Crow T-shirts. He died less than an hour later.

Ed. Unknown Unknown. 2008. 20 Feb. 2009 . Ed. Unknown Unknown. 20 Feb. 2009 