Medgar Evers: A Civil Rights Activist

Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist who organized demonstrations and boycotts of discriminating companies, and whose untimely murder received national attention and made him a martyr to the American legacy of equality. He worked to investigate crimes against African Americans like the Emmett Till murder, making him a high-profile citizen in his state. As Medgar Evers was graduating college in the early 1950s, battles for civil rights were being fought valiantly. Several attempts were made on Evers’ life as he supported equal rights movements and became better known in the community (naacp.org). Although Evers was loved by his people, this attention eventually brought him to the notice of white supremacists. These groups were angered
Medgar was returning from an ‘integration meeting’ with civil rights lawyers, and holding t-shirts that proclaimed “Jim Crow Must Go!” (naacp.org). Beckwith, hidden in bushes near the Evers household, shot Medgar in the back with a rifle. Evers died just hours after Kennedy’s speech in favor of civil rights. Medgar Evers died at a local hospital ‘less than an hour after he was shot’ (biography.com). His wife, Myrlie, who had been expecting the worst, came out of the house after hearing the gunshot and called an ambulance. However, it was too late for Medgar. Although Medgar died, his legacy lived on through his many influences and
Evers was ‘mourned nationally’ and buried in Arlington National Cemetery (naacp.org). Four days after Medgar was buried, fertilizer salesman Byron de la Beckwith was charged with his murder. Beckwith denied all charges and produced alibis to prove that he was elsewhere at the time of the shooting. De la Beckwith was the subject of two hung juries, and lived ‘a free man’ for three decades after the murder of Medgar Evers (biography.com). Both juries were all white. However, at a third jury, Beckwith was sentenced to life imprisonment and eventually died in jail at the age of 80. In the years to follow the Evers’ loss, Myrlie worked tirelessly to bring Beckwith to justice, and her efforts were commemorated by