Evers’ impassioned speech stirred both blacks and whites in Jackson. “You could sense it in the smiles of white people on the street,” Myrlie Evers wrote later, “the reports of unusual politeness in the shops and stores, in the sudden, quiet removal of racial signs at the bus depot and train station. Most impressive of all were the telephone calls, some from callers who admitted they were white, nearly all commending the speech … Few whites dared give their names.”
On May 28, the NAACP began sit-ins at the Woolworth’s store downtown. Evers himself did not take part; his associates feared that he was too vulnerable a target for segregationist retaliation. At the lunch counter, thugs attacked the sit-in participants, including John Salter and Tougaloo College student Anne Moody, throwing pepper in their eyes and spraying them with paint.* The incident drew national television coverage, prompting Mayor Thompson to negotiate with a group of black ministers. He agreed to hire some black policemen and school-crossing guards. Blacks would also be allowed to use the city’s all-white parks and libraries, and school desegregation, he pledged, would begin soon. But by nightfall the white Citizens’ Council and members of the state legislature had successfully pressured the mayor to renounce the deal. Over the radio, he denied ever making any settlement with Jackson’s black community, but he promised to work with them.
That night, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at Medgar Evers’ home. As tensions grew, SNCC workers came to town to offer training sessions on how to conduct sit-ins. Two days after the bombing, some students at Lanier High School began to sing movement songs on the school lawn during their lunch break. Hundreds of other students soon joined them. Police officers with attack dogs arrived and began to beat the students with clubs. Evers called the United States Justice Department to complain. Later that week, students conducting a protest march downtown were clubbed, arrested, and taken to the state fairground, which had been transformed into an open-air jail.
Evers wanted to respond to the arrests by mounting massive protest demonstrations, but the NAACP warned him that it could not afford to supply bail money indefinitely. The board of directors in New York wanted to concentrate on court suits; they told Field Secretary Evers to stick to voter registration and membership drives. Frustrated, Evers canceled his plans for stepped-up demonstrations. He decided to try to raise money on his own, through rallies and concerts. Singer Lena Horne agreed to give a benefit performance in Jackson.
On June 7, Horne addressed an NAACP rally in Jackson and sang in concert later that night for an audience of 3,500. Then Evers spoke to the crowd. “It’s not enough just to sit here tonight and voice your approval and clap your hands and shed your tears and sing and then go out and do nothing about this struggle,” he said. “Freedom has never been free … I love my children and I love my wife with all my heart. And I would die, and die gladly, if that would make a better life for them.”
Five days later, on June 12, Myrlie Evers sat at home watching President Kennedy on television. Her husband was still at work. She had spoken to him on the phone three times that day and been struck by the way he insisted in each conversation, “I want you to know how much I love you.”
On television, the president said, “The forces of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South … Where legal remedies are not at hand, redress is sought in the streets in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions—and threaten lives. We face therefore a moral crisis as a country and a people. It is time to act in the Congress, in your state and local legislative body, and, above all, in your daily lives.”
After the president’s speech, Mrs. Evers lay down and dozed off. She didn’t hear her husband’s car until just after midnight. As the car door slammed, the sound of gunfire pierced the air. Myrlie Evers screamed, and neighbors came out. Medgar Evers had been shot.
Neighbors laid Evers on a mattress and drove him to the hospital. He died later that night. A black doctor who was a friend of the family came to tell Mrs. Evers that he had stayed with her husband until the end. When a white nurse in the emergency room had moved slowly, the doctor had shouted at her, “This man is Medgar Evers, field secretary of the NAACP!” The doctor assured Mrs. Evers that everything possible had been done to try to save her husband.
The next night, Mrs. Evers spoke at a movement rally in Jackson. “Nothing can bring Medgar back, but the cause can live on,” she told the crowd. “It was his wish that this movement be one of the most successful that this nation has ever known. We cannot let his death be in vain.”
The Assassination of Medgar Evers: An Interview with Myrlie Evers
To be born black and to live in Mississippi was to say that your life wasn’t worth much. Medgar knew full well when he assumed the position of field director for the NAACP that there were going to be threats and that his life would possibly be taken from him. During the period when the economic boycotts were so successful and we were having rallies every day and every night, it became evident that Medgar was a target because he was the leader. The whole mood of white Mississippi was that if Medgar Evers were eliminated, the problem would be solved. Our home was firebombed, we received threats on almost an hourly basis at home, he received threats through the mail. It was a life of never knowing when that bullet was going to hit. It was something that Medgar knew, but as he said to me and to his followers in the mass meetings, we can’t let that stop us. There was a job to be done.
… In the early years, it was something I really fought. I could not give full support to Medgar’s work because I wanted him for us, I wanted our lives to go on for a long period of time. But I realized his total commitment to the cause, I realized that he would not be happy unless he were giving his all, unless he were leading the movement. And we came to realize, in those last few days, last few months, that our time was short; it was simply in the air. You knew that something was going to happen, and the logical person for it to happen to was Medgar. It certainly brought us closer during that time. As a matter of fact, we didn’t talk; we didn’t have to. We communicated without words. It was a touch, it was a look, it was holding each other, it was music playing—and I used to try to reassure him and tell him, “Nothing is going to happen to you. The FBI is here. Everybody knows you. You’re in the press; they wouldn’t dare do anything to you.” Medgar’s approach was a much more realistic one, and he would say, “Honey, you’ve got to be strong. I want you to take care of my children. It probably won’t be too long.”
Myrlie Evers bids farewell to her slain husband.
… Medgar was an absolutely marvelous father. He could talk to the children and tell them what was happening, and he devised a game with them where they decided what was the safest place in the house to hide if something happened. The children made a decision with their father that the bathtub was safest. They could not understand everything, but they were well aware that their father’s life was in danger. At their young ages—three, eight, and nine—they worried constantly about that.
I recall the last day that we had together. Medgar told the children how much he loved them. He turned to me and said, “I’m so tired, I don’t know if I can go on, but I have to.” And I rushed toward him and hugged him and told him, “It’s going to be all right.” We clung to each other. He walked out the door, and he came back in and said, “I love you. I’ll call you.” During that day, he called two or three times, which was a little unusual with all of the activity that was going on.
Late that night, he came home. The children were still up. I was asleep across the bed and we heard the motor of the car coming in and pulling into the driveway. We heard him get out of the car and the car door slam, and in that same instant, we heard the loud gunfire. The children fell to the floor, as he had taught them to, and I made a run for the front door, turned on the light, and there he was. The bullet had pushed him forward, as I understand, and the strong man that he was, he had his keys in his hand, and had pulled his body around the rest of the way, to the door
. There he lay. I screamed, and people came out. Our next door neighbor fired a gun, as he said, to try to frighten anyone away, and I knew then that that was it.
… People from the neighborhood began to gather, and there were some whose color happened to be white. I don’t think I have ever hated as much in my life as I did at that moment. I can recall wanting to have a machine gun in my hands and to stand there and mow them all down. I can’t explain the depth of my hatred at that point … Medgar’s influence has directed me in terms of dealing with that hate. He told me that hate was not a healthy thing.
… Two trials were held for the accused assassin of Medgar. Both ended in hung juries. The whole case was very interesting insofar as the way the accused killer was treated. He had a large cell that was open for him to come and go as he wanted to. He had television sets, he had typewriters, he had almost all the comforts of home. This man was also accorded a major parade along the route of the highway on his way home. People had banners that were waved, welcoming the hero home. The accused killer also made a statement to the press that he was glad to have gotten rid of “varmints.” The governor, Ross Barnett, actually made a visit to the accused during the first trial. He walked in the door when I was on the witness stand—stood, looked at me, and went over to the accused killer, sat down, shook his hand.
I had mixed emotions about it all … a white man had been brought to trial for the murder of a black. That was a step forward, a very small one, but a step forward. However, the fact that there were two trials, that this man was treated as a hero, and that everything was dropped, still said to me that black is black. Even today, the justice that is accorded other ethnic groups in the United States is still not accorded blacks in Mississippi. We’re still fighting for first-class citizenship.
At Evers’ funeral, about a thousand black youths spontaneously marched down Capitol Street, the main downtown business route. They were soon joined by many of their elders. Police ordered the crowd to disperse. Instead, rocks and bottles flew. “We want the killer!” people shouted. Police dogs were brought onto the scene as the demonstration became a riot. Then a white man grabbed a police bullhorn and barked, “You’re not gonna win anything with bottles and bricks. Hold it … My name is John Doar. I’m from the Justice Department and anyone around here knows I stand for what is right … Go on home … Let’s not have a riot here.” Dave Dennis, CORE staff member, helped Doar calm the crowd, which eventually dispersed.
Medgar Evers was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The following day, his family went to the White House to see President Kennedy. Myrlie Evers wanted to tell Kennedy that she was devastated. She meant to tell the president that her husband had fought in a war for his nation and had returned home a second-class citizen. She wanted to express her anger that he had been killed for trying to defend the constitutional rights of his people. But when Kennedy asked her, “How are you doing?” she could only reply, “Fine, thank you, Mr. President.” Kennedy then gave two of the Evers children small gifts—a PT-109 tie clip for Darrell and a medallion with the presidential seal for Rena. He told them they should be proud of their father and their heritage.
After Evers’ funeral, police and demonstrators clashed in the streets of Jackson, Mississippi.
Meanwhile, police had arrested a suspect in the shooting: Byron de la Beckwith, a member of the white Citizens’ Council in the town of Greenwood, eighty miles from Jackson. The murder weapon belonged to him and his fingerprints were found on the gun’s sight, which police had found separately. Officials had also learned from cab drivers that Beckwith had asked for directions to Evers’ house.
Despite the compelling evidence, the charges against Beckwith were dropped after two trials ended in hung juries. The acquitted man later ran as a Democratic candidate for the post of lieutenant governor.
After Evers’ death, his brother Charles took over his job as field secretary for the NAACP in Jackson. The organization’s headquarters made it clear to him that the NAACP worked through the courts and the political system. That meant registering voters.
For years, the authorities had used many devious means to keep blacks from exercising their right to vote. Until 1954, the Mississippi state constitution stipulated that to qualify to vote, a person had to be able to “read or interpret” that document. Because more and more blacks had been learning to read, however, the state legislature changed the requirement from “read or interpret” to “read and interpret.” That provision allowed white registrars to judge arbitrarily whether a black person met the test. Most often, of course, blacks “failed”—even some people with doctoral degrees.
Segregationists often insisted that they were not opposed to blacks voting, but were concerned that poorly educated blacks might be exploited by unscrupulous politicians. Southern blacks, maintained William Simmons of the Citizens’ Council, were often “not asked to vote as Americans but as blacks. Now, there has been some history in the South of black ‘block voting.’ Most often it has been connected with political machines of generally a corrupt nature. I can mention two: the E. H. Crump machine in Memphis, Tennessee, and the [Huey] Long Machine in Louisiana … And part of their power was a manipulable black block vote. One could see this coming about …”
On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated. Five days later, Lyndon Baines Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress as the nation’s thirty-sixth president. “No memorial or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought,” said the new president. “We have talked for one hundred years or more. Yes, it is time now to write the next chapter—and to write it in books of law.” The Civil Rights Act that Kennedy had sent to Congress shortly before the march on Washington was the most comprehensive piece of legislation addressing discrimination since Reconstruction. Even with Johnson’s support, it seemed unlikely that the bill would make it through both houses of Congress without substantial compromises.
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
The Kennedy administration and the Justice Department had crafted the bill to outlaw racial segregation and discrimination in all publicly or privately owned facilities that were open to the general public. But the legislation barely addressed the issue that many black leaders considered most crucial—the right to vote.
For years the NAACP had been working to help black Mississippians exercise their right to vote, with little success. In early 1962, SNCC had sought funding for a voter registration campaign from the Voter Education Project. “We have people strategically located in each of the five Congressional districts [in Mississippi],” SNCC’s application read. “The field workers … are going to live with the people, develop their own leaders and teach them the process of registration and the effective use of the franchise.” SNCC received a grant of $5,000 from the Voter Education Project.
Amzie Moore (second from right) had the original idea of bringing activists from outside Mississippi to help organize that state. With Bob Moses (far left), Moore helped organize the volunteers’ activities. Julian Bond stands next to Moses; next to Moore are Hollis Watkins (left) and E. W. Steptoe.
As a demonstration of interest (and a rehearsal for the real thing), COFO launched the Freedom Vote in the fall of 1963.
Also in 1962, several local civil rights groups in Mississippi joined forces with SNCC, CORE, the NAACP, and the SCLC, forming an umbrella group called the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). COFO’s first major move was to launch a project it dubbed the Freedom Vote, during the fall of 1963. The project had two goals: to demonstrate to Mississippi whites and the federal government that, despite segregationist claims to the contrary, blacks were indeed interested in voting, and to provide practice in casting the ballot to people denied that right all their lives. As in most southern states, virtually all political power in Mississippi rested with Democrats. Blacks, excluded from the political pro
cess, could not vote in the state’s gubernatorial election that November. Instead, SNCC offered blacks the Freedom Vote, a mock election in which unofficial “Freedom Party” candidates challenged the Democratic and Republican hopefuls. The Freedom Party was open to all citizens, regardless of race. For governor, the Freedom Party candidate was Aaron Henry, a black pharmacist from Clarksdale who was the chairman of COFO and the state president of the NAACP. The Reverend Edwin King, a white chaplain at all-black Tougaloo College, was Henry’s running mate for lieutenant governor.
To help get out the Freedom Vote, Bob Moses, the project’s chief field organizer, and Allard Lowenstein, who developed the idea, brought in sixty white students from Yale and Stanford universities for two weeks of campaigning. The young northerners walked door to door in black neighborhoods, spreading word of the practice election. Despite many arrests and beatings, the workers carried on. “What we have discovered is that the people who run Mississippi today can only do so by force,” said Lowenstein. “They cannot allow free elections in Mississippi, because if they did, they wouldn’t run Mississippi.” On the day of the mock election, 93,000 people cast their “votes” at tables set up on the sidewalks and in barbershops and beauty parlors. Henry and King won handily.
Eyes on the Prize Page 27
