Medger Evers

Medger Evers

Prejudice is an unfavorable opinion or feeling, formed beforehand (e.g., before even meeting a person) based on non-personal characteristics (e.g., skin color, religious, gender). One form of prejudice is racism. Racism is negative attitudes and values held by people about other people based on their race. It is this attitude which causes one to discriminate against another. Discrimination is treating people unfavorably on the basis of race, color or sex. Prejudice and discrimination were prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s. This era was a time of hatred, a time of violence, a time when black people were colonized by the white colonizer, and it was a time of white-on-black racial violence. Because of this hatred, the whites discriminated against the blacks.

The purpose of this paper is to show, how white-on-black racial violence, arising out of the 1950s and 1960s, caused Medgar Evers, a Civil Rights Leader, to lose his life while fighting for his equality for the blacks in his state, how his murderer was allowed to walk free, and how finally after thirty years a racial injustice, turns into justice. In order to accomplish this I will first explain the discrimination in the 1950s and 1960s, who Medgar Evers was, what he accomplished, about the person who assassinated him, and the long fight to right a racial injustice.

During this time in southern states, black people were not allowed to vote. They could not go into restaurants or other public places inhabited by whites. They had to use separate water fountains, separate bathrooms, separate churches, and even go to separate schools. Blacks had to sit in the back of buses and other forms of public transportation. If they had a seat and there were no empty ones left when a white person entered a bus or other seated area, the blacks had to stand or get off. This was evident when three black men were at the courthouse and there were no seats left in the front row and they had to stand so that the white children could be seated. There were also extensive literacy tests that had to be passed. Again, many of these "free" blacks had ancestors that were slaves. They were not taught to read. Therefore, they could not teach their children or grandchildren to read. It was thought that blacks were automatically dumb because of their color, therefore, they were not allowed to do anything but menial tasks (such as chopping wood) and hard labor.

Unfortunately, many Americans today have never heard the name of Medgar Evers, a man who willingly, and literally, put his life on the line of hate that divided the races in the South. Ironically, many young Americans, including African Americans, who grew up after these turbulent years have forgotten leaders, such as Medgar Evers, who brought about the powerful tides of change.

Medgar Evers was born in 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi. After serving in the U.S. Army, he began to establish local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (better known as the NAACP), whose primary focus is the protection and enhancement of the civil rights of African Americans and other minorities, while attending Alcorn A&M College. (NPR). In 1952, after graduating college, he sold insurance in rural Mississippi. It was during this time that he grew enraged at the oppression of the black people in his state and became more active in the NAACP where he became the first field secretary in Mississippi, where he struggled to bring equality to his home state of Mississippi. A state in which he loved with hope and rarely with despair, and it was his hope that sustained him, a state with such blatant discrimination that blacks dared not even speak of civil rights, much less actively campaign for them. Evers recalls a time in 1954, when he witnessed an attempted lynching. He states,

My father was on his deathbed in the hospital in Union, Mississippi, Evers stated, "The Negro ward was in the basement and it was terribly stuffy. My Daddy was dying slowly, in the basement of a hospital and at one point I just had to walk outside so I wouldn't burst. On that very night a Negro had fought with a white man in Union and a white mob had shot the Negro in the leg. The police brought the Negro to the hospital but the mob was outside the hospital, armed with pistols and rifles, yelling for the Negro. I walked out into the middle of it. I just stood there and everything was too much for me . . . It seemed that this would never change. It was that way for my Daddy, it was that way for me, and it looked as though it would be that way for my children. I was so mad I just stood there trembling and tears rolled down my cheeks. (Galegroup).

Evers, a thoughtful and committed member of the NAACP, wanted to change his native state. He was determined to fight segregation in all its aspects. He traveled throughout the state recruiting members and organizing voter-registration drives and economic boycotts. He used civil disobedience to highlight the injustice of the violent segregationist system. He was blunt, and his demands were radical. In his dealings with whites and blacks alike, Evers spoke constantly of the need to overcome hatred, to promote understanding and equality between the races. It was not a message that everyone in Mississippi wanted to hear. (galegroup). According to the Galegroup website,

Evers was featured on a nine-man death list in the deep South as early as 1955. He and his family endured numerous threats and other violent acts, making them well aware of the danger surrounding Evers because of his activism. Still, he persisted in his efforts to integrate public facilities, schools, and restaurants. He organized voter registration drives and demonstrations. He spoke eloquently about the plight of his people and pleaded with the all-white government of Mississippi for some sort of progress in race relations. To those people who opposed such things, he was thought to be a very dangerous man. "We both knew he was going to die," Myrlie Evers said of her husband in Esquire. "Medgar didn't want to be a martyr. But if he had to die to get us that far, he was willing to do it."

Although he lived in a place of such blatant discrimination, Medgar worked continuously despite the threats of violence that his speeches gave rise to. Through marches, prayer vigils, picket lines, sit-ins, signed petitions, and demonstrations, Medgar Evers fought for school segregation, the right to vote, and he advocated boycotting merchants who discriminated. (galegroup). The white Mississippians' response to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, was one of intimidation, open defiance, verbal abuse, political deceit and, above all, violence.

Evers was committed to his cause, to change