The Autobiography of Medgar Evers

The Autobiography of Medgar Evers PDF Author: Myrlie Evers-Williams
Publisher: Civitas Books
ISBN: 0786722495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
On the evening of June 12, 1963 -- the day President John F. Kennedy gave his most impassioned speech about the need for interracial tolerance "Medgar Evers, the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, was shot and killed by an assassin's bullet in his driveway. The still-smoking gun -- bearing the fingerprints of Byron De La Beckwith, a staunch white supremacist -- was recovered moments later in some nearby bushes. Still, Beckwith remained free for over thirty years, until Evers's widow finally forced the Mississippi courts to bring him to justice. The Autobiography of Medgar Evers tells the full story of one the greatest leaders of the civil rights movement, bringing his achievement to life for a new generation. Although Evers's memory has remained a force in the civil rights movement, the legal battles surrounding his death have too often overshadowed the example and inspiration of his life. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable have assembled the previously untouched cache of Medgar's personal documents, writings, and speeches. These remarkable pieces range from Medgar's monthly reports to the NAACP to his correspondence with luminaries of the time such as Robert Carter, General Counsel for the NAACP in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. Most important of all are the recollections of Myrlie Evers, combined with letters from her personal collection. These documents and memories form the backbone of The Autobiography of Medgar Evers a cohesive narrative detailing the rise and tragic death of a civil rights hero.

The Autobiography of Medgar Evers

The Autobiography of Medgar Evers PDF Author: Myrlie Evers-Williams
Publisher: Civitas Books
ISBN: 0786722495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Get Book Here

Book Description
On the evening of June 12, 1963 -- the day President John F. Kennedy gave his most impassioned speech about the need for interracial tolerance "Medgar Evers, the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, was shot and killed by an assassin's bullet in his driveway. The still-smoking gun -- bearing the fingerprints of Byron De La Beckwith, a staunch white supremacist -- was recovered moments later in some nearby bushes. Still, Beckwith remained free for over thirty years, until Evers's widow finally forced the Mississippi courts to bring him to justice. The Autobiography of Medgar Evers tells the full story of one the greatest leaders of the civil rights movement, bringing his achievement to life for a new generation. Although Evers's memory has remained a force in the civil rights movement, the legal battles surrounding his death have too often overshadowed the example and inspiration of his life. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable have assembled the previously untouched cache of Medgar's personal documents, writings, and speeches. These remarkable pieces range from Medgar's monthly reports to the NAACP to his correspondence with luminaries of the time such as Robert Carter, General Counsel for the NAACP in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. Most important of all are the recollections of Myrlie Evers, combined with letters from her personal collection. These documents and memories form the backbone of The Autobiography of Medgar Evers a cohesive narrative detailing the rise and tragic death of a civil rights hero.

Remembering Medgar Evers

Remembering Medgar Evers PDF Author: Minrose Gwin
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820335630
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
As the first NAACP field secretary for Mississippi, Medgar Wiley Evers put his life on the line to investigate racial crimes (including Emmett Till's murder) and to organize boycotts and voter registration drives. On June 12, 1963, he was shot in the back by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith as the civil rights leader unloaded a stack of "Jim Crow Must Go" T-shirts in his own driveway. His was the first assassination of a high-ranking public figure in the civil rights movement. While Evers's death ushered in a decade of political assassinations and ignited a powder keg of racial unrest nationwide, his life of service and courage has largely been consigned to the periphery of U.S. and civil rights history. In her compelling study of collective memory and artistic production, Remembering Medgar Evers, Minrose Gwin engages the powerful body of work that has emerged in response to Evers's life and death--fiction, poetry, memoir, drama, and songs from James Baldwin, Margaret Walker, Eudora Welty, Lucille Clifton, Bob Dylan, and Willie Morris, among others. Gwin examines local news accounts about Evers, 1960s gospel and protest music as well as contemporary hip-hop, the haunting poems of Frank X Walker, and contemporary fiction such as The Help and Gwin's own novel, The Queen of Palmyra. In this study, Evers springs to life as a leader of "plural singularity," who modeled for southern African Americans a new form of cultural identity that both drew from the past and broke from it; to quote Gwendolyn Brooks, "He leaned across tomorrow." Fifty years after his untimely death, Evers still casts a long shadow. In her examination of the body of work he has inspired, Gwin probes wide-ranging questions about collective memory and art as instruments of social justice. "Remembered, Evers's life's legacy pivots to the future," she writes, "linking us to other human rights struggles, both local and global." A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication.

Medgar Evers

Medgar Evers PDF Author: Michael Vinson Williams
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557286469
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
The sculptor Ed Hamilton presents information on his portrait bust of African-American civil rights activist Medgar Wiley Evers (1925-1963). Evers was murdered on June 12, 1963. He worked for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and campaigned to win equal rights for African Americans in the south. The bust was cast in bronze at Bright Foundry in Louisville, Kentucky. General Mills, Inc. commissioned the bust.

Watch Me Fly

Watch Me Fly PDF Author: Myrlie Evers-Williams
Publisher: Little Brown
ISBN: 9780316255202
Category : African American women
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
The former chairwoman of the NAACP and widow of assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers draws from her own extraordinary life to share inspiration and advice on everything from triumphing over adversity to achieving selfhood.

For Us, the Living

For Us, the Living PDF Author: Myrlie Evers Williams
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496849248
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
In 1967, when this brave book was first published, Myrlie Evers said, “Somewhere in Mississippi lives the man who murdered my husband.” Medgar Evers died in a horrifying act of political violence. Among both blacks and whites, the killing of this Mississippi civil rights leader intensified the menacing moods of unrest and discontent generated during the civil rights era. His death seemed to usher in a succession of political shootings—Evers, then John Kennedy, then Martin Luther King, Jr., then Robert Kennedy. At thirty-seven while field secretary for the NAACP, Evers was gunned down in Jackson, Mississippi, during the summer of 1963. Byron De La Beckwith, an arch segregationist charged with the crime, was released after two trials with hung juries. In 1994, after new evidence surfaced thirty years later, Beckwith was arrested and tried a third time. Medgar Evers's widow saw him convicted and jailed with a life sentence. In For Us, the Living this extraordinary woman tells a moving story of her courtship and of her marriage to this heroic man who learned to live with the probability of violent death. She describes her husband's unrelenting devotion to the quest of achieving civil rights for thousands of black Mississippians and of his ultimate sacrifice on that hot summer night. With this reprinting of her poignant yet painful memoir, a book long out of print comes back to life and underscores the sacrifice of Medgar Evers and his family. Introduced in a reflective essay written by the acclaimed Mississippi author Willie Morris, this account of Evers's professional and family life will cause readers to ponder how his tragic martyrdom quickened the pace of justice for black people while withholding justice from him for thirty years. Since the conviction of Beckwith in a dramatic and historical trial in a Mississippi court there has been renewed acclaim for Evers. One speculates that, had he lived, he might have attained even more for the equality of African Americans in national life.

Never Too Late

Never Too Late PDF Author: Bobby Delaughter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074322339X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
In June 12, 1963, Mississippi's fast-rising NAACP leader Medgar Evers was gunned down by a white supremacist named Byron De La Beckwith. Beckwith escaped conviction twice at the hands of all-white Southern juries, and his crime went unpunished for more than three decades. Now, from Bobby DeLaughter, one of the most celebrated prosecutors in modern American law, comes the blistering account of his remarkable crusade in 1994 finally to bring the assassin of Medgar Evers to justice. This is the fascinating, real-life story of the assistant district attorney -- played by Alec Baldwin in Rob Reiner's Ghosts of Mississippi -- who brought closure to one of the darkest chapters of the civil rights movement. When the district attorney's office in Jackson, Mississippi, decided to reopen the case, the obstacles in its way were overwhelming: missing court records; transcripts that were more than thirty years old; original evidence that had been lost; new testimony that had to be taken regarding long-ago events; and the perception throughout the state that a reprosecution was a futile endeavor. But step by painstaking step, DeLaughter and his team overcame the obstacles and built their case. With taut prose that reads like a great detective thriller, Never Too Late is a page-turner of the very highest order. It charts the course of a country lawyer who, concerned about the collective soul of his community and the nature of American justice in general, dared to revisit a thirty-one-year-old case -- one so incendiary that everyone warned him not to touch it -- and win a long-overdue conviction. DeLaughter's success in this trial stands today as a landmark in the annals of criminal prosecution, and this bracing first-person account brings the saga to life as never before.

Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918

Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918 PDF Author: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Lynching
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description


Race Against Time

Race Against Time PDF Author: Jerry Mitchell
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1451645147
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
“For almost two decades, investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell doggedly pursued the Klansmen responsible for some of the most notorious murders of the civil rights movement. This book is his amazing story. Thanks to him, and to courageous prosecutors, witnesses, and FBI agents, justice finally prevailed.” —John Grisham, author of The Guardians On June 21, 1964, more than twenty Klansmen murdered three civil rights workers. The killings, in what would become known as the “Mississippi Burning” case, were among the most brazen acts of violence during the civil rights movement. And even though the killers’ identities, including the sheriff’s deputy, were an open secret, no one was charged with murder in the months and years that followed. It took forty-one years before the mastermind was brought to trial and finally convicted for the three innocent lives he took. If there is one man who helped pave the way for justice, it is investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell. In Race Against Time, Mitchell takes readers on the twisting, pulse-racing road that led to the reopening of four of the most infamous killings from the days of the civil rights movement, decades after the fact. His work played a central role in bringing killers to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham and the Mississippi Burning case. Mitchell reveals how he unearthed secret documents, found long-lost suspects and witnesses, building up evidence strong enough to take on the Klan. He takes us into every harrowing scene along the way, as when Mitchell goes into the lion’s den, meeting one-on-one with the very murderers he is seeking to catch. His efforts have put four leading Klansmen behind bars, years after they thought they had gotten away with murder. Race Against Time is an astonishing, courageous story capturing a historic race for justice, as the past is uncovered, clue by clue, and long-ignored evils are brought into the light. This is a landmark book and essential reading for all Americans.

Ghosts of Mississippi

Ghosts of Mississippi PDF Author: Maryanne Vollers
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
ISBN: 9780316914857
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
An examination of a noted civil rights case involving the murder of an NAACP official and his killer's three trials draws comparisons between the case and the racial climate in the Deep South

T. R. M. Howard

T. R. M. Howard PDF Author: David T. Beito
Publisher: Independent Institute
ISBN: 1598133144
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 467

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Book Description
T. R. M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer tells the remarkable story of one of the early leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. A renaissance man, T. R. M. Howard (1908-1976) was a respected surgeon, important black community leader, and successful businessman. Howard's story reveals the importance of the black middle class, their endurance and entrepreneurship in the midst of Jim Crow, and their critical role in the early Civil Rights Movement. In this powerful biography, David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito shine a light on the life and accomplishments of this civil rights leader. Howard founded black community organizations, organized civil rights rallies and boycotts, mentored Medgar Evers, antagonized the Ku Klux Klan, and helped lead the fight for justice for Emmett Till. Raised in poverty and witness to racial violence from a young age, Howard was passionate about justice and equality. Ambitious, zealous, and sometimes paradoxical, T. R. M. Howard provides a complete portrait of an important leader all too often forgotten.