Medgar Evers

Although Medgar Evers had catapulted Civil Rights Movement far, it had left him vulnerable to attack, and the day of the attack finally came on June 12, 1963. As Medgar came home from an integration meeting with the NAACP carrying T-shirts that had: “Jim Crow Must Go” sprawled across the front, a sniper’s bullet dug itself deep into Medgar’s back. He stumbled blindly about thirty feet until he finally collapsed. His wife, Myrlie, heard the high-powered rifle’s shot, and ran outside to find Medgar lying face-down in the carport, in a pool of blood. Medgar died soon after in the hospital due to the loss of blood and internal injuries.

After Medgar’s tragic death, a high-powered rifle, which was thought to have been the weapon that killed Medgar, was found in the thicket of some bushes approximately 150 feet from Medgar’s carport. The fingerprints on the rifle were still fresh and they were identified as those of Byron De La Beckwith, former member of the White Citizens’ Council and KKK (Ku Klux Klan). Beckwith was tried twice for Medgar’s murder in front of all-white male jurors but wasn’t found guilty. But when he was tried thirty years later in front of eight Blacks and four Whites, he was given a life sentence. He only served seven years though, before dying of a heart attack on January 21, 2001.

At Medgar’s funeral, about three hundred young mourners began singing and moving in a mass toward Capital Street, the main street of the capital city. The police reacted by using billy-clubs and dogs to disperse them, but the crowd responded by hurling bricks, bottles, and rocks. And this isn’t the only thing that happened after Medgar’s death. Many songs, statues, and monuments were made in his honor. Even a whole school was constructed in honor of him.

Even though Medgar Evers never got to finish his job, he had catapulted the Civil Rights Movement further than he thought he could. He might not know it, but even if his death seemed like the worst possible thing for the Civil Rights Movement then, it seems that it actually helped the Civil Rights Movement even more because more people had started to get involved as they were inspired by him during his short, but great life.