"Pay it Forward series" learn to become part of black men making a difference

Medgar Wiley Evers was born July 2, 1925, near Decatur, Mississippi, and attended school there until he was inducted into the army in 1943. After serving in WWII, he attended Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University), majoring in business. While at Alcorn, he was involved outside the classroom: the debate team, choir, the football and track teams, and he held several student offices and was editor of the campus newspaper for two years. He was a student who did it all and graduated. It was also at Alcorn that he met his future wife Myrlie Beasley.
After earning his BA he moved to Mound Bayou, Mississippi, during which time Evers began to establish local chapters of the NAACP throughout the Delta and organizing boycotts of gasoline stations that refused to allow blacks to use their restrooms. He worked as an insurance agent until 1954, the year a Supreme Court decision ruled school segregation unconstitutional (Brown vs. Brd of Ed). He applied for law school at University of Mississippi Law School, but was denied admission. However, his attempt to integrate the state’s oldest public university attracted the attention of the NAACP’s national office, and that same year he was appointed Mississippi’s first field secretary for the NAACP.
Evers and Myrlie moved to Jackson, where they worked together to set up the NAACP office, and he began investigating violent crimes committed against blacks and sought ways to prevent them. His boycott of Jackson merchants in the early 1960s attracted national attention, and his efforts to have James Meredith admitted to the University of Mississippi in 1962 brought much-needed federal help for which he had been soliciting. Meredith was admitted to Ole Miss, a major step in securing civil rights in the state, but an ensuing riot on campus left two people dead, and Evers’ involvement in this and other activities increased the hatred many people felt toward Evers.
On June 12, 1963, as he was returning home, Medgar Evers was killed by an assassin’s bullet. Black and white leaders from around the nation came to Jackson for his funeral and then gathered at Arlington National Cemetery for his interment. His wife battled in the courts for almost 31 years and it was not until 1994 that Byron De La Beckwith was found guilty. BUT what is important to note was his legacy was established in 37 short years. The state of Mississippi increased voter turnout by 1400% in ten years! Medgar gave his life to pay it forward for his family, his community and for the US. There is still much to learn from him. He served his country, he earned an education and he was a good father. What have YOU done today with what you can to feel proud?

Brown, Jennie. Medgar Evers. Los Angeles: Melrose Square Pub. Co., 1994.

Evers, Myrlie B., and William Peters. For Us, the Living. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967; Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996.

Jackson, James E. At the funeral of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi; A Tribute in Tears and a Thrust for Freedom. New York: Publisher’s New Press, 1963.