PROLOGUE: LOVE
1. Medgar Evers, as told to Francis H. Mitchell, “Why I Live in Mississippi,” Ebony, November 1958, 65–70.
2. W. J. Weatherby, James Baldwin: Artist on Fire: A Portrait (New York: Donald I. Fine, 1989), 3.
3. Associated Press, “Violence Feared; Murder Rifle Is Found,” Record (Hackensack, NJ), June 13, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/491097683.
4. Ibid.
5. Associated Press, “Jack Appalled by Barbarity, Springfield Leader Press, June 13, 1963, https://newspapers.com/image/299347227.
6. Associated Press, “Ike, JFK Discuss Race Rift, Kennedy ‘Appalled’ at Evers Killing,” Miami Herald, June 13, 1963, https://newspapers.com/image/619610635.
7. AP, “Jack Appalled by Barbarity.”
8. McKenzie Jean-Philippe and Jane Burnett, “30 Civil Rights Leaders of the Past and Present: We’ll Feel Their Impact for Generations to Come,” Oprah Daily, February 8, 2023, https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/g35181270/civil-rights-leaders.
CHAPTER 1: MISSISSIPPI GODDAMN . . .
1. Tom Dent, “Portrait of Three Heroes,” Freedomways, Second Quarter, 1965, https://www.crmvet.org/info/65_dent_3heroes.pdf.
2. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers, 2021. They were based on what she heard from Medgar’s brother, mother, and friends over the years.
3. Medgar Evers, as told to Francis H. Mitchell, “Why I Live in Mississippi,” Ebony, November 1958, 65–69.
4. Ibid.
5. Oral history interviews, “Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South,” Duke University, John Hope Franklin Research Center, records 1940–1997 and undated, bulk 1993–1997; Jack Young interview, 19–20.
6. “World War II: D-Day, The Invasion of Normandy,” National Archives, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/world-war-ii-d-day-invasion-normandy.
7. Jordan Ginder, “Biographies: Medgar W. Evers,” National Museum United States Army, February 5, 2023, https://www.thenmusa.org/biographies/medgar-w-evers.
8. Charles Evers and Andrew Szanton, Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 47.
9. Ibid., 48.
10. James Campbell, “Black American in Paris,” Nation, September 9, 2004, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/black-american-paris.
11. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 6.
12. M. Evers and Mitchell, “Why I Live in Mississippi,” 65–70.
13. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters, and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), 367.
14. M. Evers and Mitchell, “Why I Live In Mississippi,” 65–70.
15. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 3.
16. Jack Mendelsohn, The Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 64.
17. Ibid., 64–65.
18. Ibid., 64.
19. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 6.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 24.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., 8.
25. Mendelsohn, Martyrs, 64–65.
26. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 40.
27. Ibid., 11–12.
28. Eric Norden, “The Playboy Interview with Charles Evers,” Playboy (website), October 1, 1971, https://www.playboy.com/read/the-playboy-interview-with-charles-evers.
29. Ibid.
30. 1965 U.S. Civil Rights Commission report on voting in Mississippi, https://www2.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12v94.pdf.
31. U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals by Race Table 39 Mississippi—Race and Hispanic Origin: 1800–1990, 67, https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/2002/demo/POP-twps0056.pdf.
32. Ibid.
33. BlackPast historical online archive, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/digital-archives.
34. Matthew S. Shapanka, “White Primary,” Mississippi Encyclopedia, Center for Study of Southern Culture, http://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/white-primary (published July 11, 2017, last updated April 15, 2018, accessed February 5, 2023).
35. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 29.
36. Ibid., 30–31.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. “Mississippians Vote Despite Bilbo Threats,” Jackson Advocate, July 6, 1946, https://www.newspapers.com/image/748320428.
43. “The South: Present Laughter,” Time, December 16, 1946, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,934699,00.html.
44. “Fair Weather for Tuesday Voting Is Late Forecast,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), July 2, 1946, https://www.newspapers.com/image/202693740.
45. Ibid.
46. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 60.
47. Ibid., 61.
48. M. Evers and Mitchell, “Why I Live in Mississippi,” 65.
49. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 61.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., 62.
53. Ibid., 58–64.
54. Juan Williams, “Men Changed by War Fight to Be Equals,” Washington Post, July 26, 1995, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/07/26/men-changed-by-war-fight-to-be-equals/ff719d33-91ab-4420-a88c-a038a33bcfc6.
55. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 64.
56. “New Bilbo Probe Looms as Negro Protests Location,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), November 18, 1946, https://www.newspapers.com/image/202713645.
57. “The South: Present Laughter.”
58. National Parks Service, “Medgar Wiley Evers,” https://www.nps.gov/memy/learn/historyculture/medgar-evers.htm.
59. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 57.
CHAPTER 2: MEDGAR AND MYRLIE
1. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Melinda Blau, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be (Boston: Little, Brown, 1999), 52.
2. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
3. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 52.
4. Ibid., 23–24.
5. Ibid., 53.
6. Ibid., 54.
7. Ibid., 33.
8. Charles Evers and Andrew Szanton, Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 69.
9. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 57.
10. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
11. Bilal G. Morris, “The Legend of Ben Montgomery: From Enslaved Man to One of the Richest Merchants in the South,” NewsOne, June 13, 2022, https://newsone.com/4354023/ben-montgomery-davis-bend.
12. Milburn Crowe, John Martin, and Luther Brown, “The Mound Bayou Story,” The Delta Center for Culture and Learning, Delta State University (Cleveland, MS), revised 2019 by Linda and David Beito, https://www.earlyblues.com/Mound_Bayou_Story_1-compressed.pdf; Melissa Block and Elissa Nadworny, “Here’s What’s Become of a Historic All-Black Town in the Mississippi Delta,” March 8, 2017, WUBR, NPR News, https://www.wbur.org/npr/515814287/heres-whats-become-of-a-historic-all-black-town-in-the-mississippi-delta.
13. Brian Gann, “T. R. M. Howard (1908–1976),” June 19, 2011, BlackPast.org, https://www.blackpast.org/african-amercican-history/howard-t-r-m-1908-1976.
14. Dr. T. R. M. Howard Papers, 1929–1976, Chicago Public Library, https://www.chipublib.org/fa-t-r-m-howard-papers.
15. David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “An Unlikely, Unsung Civil Rights Champion,” Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2009, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-aug-28-oe-beito28-story.html.
16. Interviews with Mound Bayou historians Mickey Johns and Darrell Johns.
17. Dr. T. R. M. Howard Papers, 1929–1976, Chicago Public Library.
18. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
19. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 61.
20. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), 20.
21. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers Williams, 2021.
22. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 58.
23. Ibid., 59.
24. Ibid.
25. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
26. Ibid.
27. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 59-60.
CHAPTER 3: EMMETT TILL
1. Jack Mendelsohn, The Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 67.
2. “State NAACP Officer Conference Listed,” Jackson Advocate, February 9, 1954, https://www.newspapers.com/image/835011623.
3. Charles Evers and Andrew Szanton, Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 77–78.
4. Ibid.
5. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
6. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 77.
7. Valerie Wells, “News Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Clarion-Ledger,” Jackson Free Press, September 7, 2011, https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2011/sep/07/news-wars-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-clarion-ledger.
8. David G. Sansing, “Hugh Lawson White,” Mississippi Encyclopedia, Center for Study of Southern Culture (published July 11, 2017, last updated April 15, 2018, accessed February 5, 2023), http://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/hugh-white-lawson.
9. “Bi-Racial Board Urged by Negroes,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), July 26, 1954, https://www.newspapers.com/image/185234029.
10. Charles Bolton, “Brown v. Board of Education,” Mississippi Encyclopedia, Center for Study of Southern Culture (published July 10, 2017, last updated February 24, 2020), https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/brown-v-board-of-education.
11. Myrlie Evers with William Peters, For Us, the Living (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 118.
12. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), 14.
13. Ibid., 17–20.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning [the Lynching of Emmett Till], February 9, 2006, https://vault.fbi.gov/Emmett%20Till%20.
17. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 120.
18. Ibid., 122.
19. Ibid., 131–32.
20. Ibid, 132.
21. David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “The Grim and Overlooked Anniversary of the Murder of the Rev. George W. Lee, Civil Rights Activist,” George Washington University, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, History News Network, https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/11744.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Author interview with Rev. Amos Brown, April 2023.
25. Ibid.
26. American Experience: The Great Migration; From Mississippi to Chicago, season 15, episode 6, “The Murder of Emmett Till,” directed by Stanley Nelson, written by Marcia Smith and David C. Taylor, featuring Andre Braugher, Pat Antici, and Oudie Brown, aired January 20, 2003, on PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/till/#part01.
27. Ellen Barry, “Rumor of a Key Witness,” Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2005, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jul-30-na-johnny30-story.html.
28. Linda Royster Beito and David T. Beito, “Emmett Till, a New Investigation, and Vindication of T. R. M. Howard,” Independent Institute, August 13, 2018, https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=1047.
29. Sam Roberts, “Simeon Wright, Witness to Abduction of Emmett Till, Dies at 74,” New York Times, September 6, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/obituaries/simeon-wright-witness-to-abduction-of-emmett-till-dies-at-74.htm.
30. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prosecutive Report of Investigation.
31. Author interview with Mayor Johnny B. Thomas, 2022.
32. Roberts, “Simeon Wright.”
33. American Experience, “The Murder of Emmett Till.”
34. Dave Tell, “Robert’s Temple Church of God in Christ,” Emmett Till Memory Project, https://tillapp.emmett-till.org/items/show/20.
35. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 34–35.
36. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 86–87.
37. L. R. Beito and D. T. Beito, “Emmett Till, a New Investigation.”
38. Transcripts of testimony in the trial of Roy Milam and J. W. Milam, September 19–23, 1955, https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu%3A390158.
39. From interview with Mayor Johnny B. Thomas, 2022.
40. “Charleston Sheriff Says Body in River Wasn’t Young Till,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 4, 1955, https://www.newspapers.com/image/769909130.
41. American Experience, “Murder of Emmett Till.”
42. L. R. Beito and D. T. Beito, “Emmett Till, a New Investigation.”
43. John Edgar Wideman, “A Black and White Case,” Esquire (website), October 19, 2016, https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48989/black-and-white-case.
44. Martin Luther King Jr., “Recommendations to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church for the Fiscal Year 1954–1955,” Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, September 5, 1954, Stanford University, The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, King Papers, Bin 2, 290.
45. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 67–69.
46. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prosecutive Report of Investigation.
47. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 21–27.
48. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 95–96.
49. Michael Newton, The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010), 113.
50. Author interview with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
CHAPTER 4: THE HOUSE ON GUYNES STREET
1. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Melinda Blau, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be (Boston: Little, Brown, 1999), 64.
2. Fifty-six dollars in 1956 would be the equivalent of about $610 today.
3. Myrlie Evers with William Peters, For Us, the Living (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 136–37.
4. Ibid., 131.
5. Ibid., 64.
6. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 66.
7. Ibid., 67.
8. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Author interviews with Ms. Grace Britton-Sweet, March 2021.
12. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), 54–55.
13. Ibid.
14. Medgar Evers, telegram to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, dated October 25, 1956. Quoted in Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 58–59.
15. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 58–59.
16. Medgar Evers, “1955 Annual Report: Mississippi State Office, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.”
17. Ibid.
18. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 64.
19. Ibid., 73–74.
20. Medgar Evers, as told to Francis H. Mitchell, “Why I Live in Mississippi,” Ebony, November 1958.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Darrell Evers interviewed by Orlando Bagwell, April 3, 1986, in Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965, Film and Media Archive, Washington University in St. Louis, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston and Washington, D.C., http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-151-cv4bn9xv7m.
25. Rep. Bennie Thompson, interview, in Spies of Mississippi, directed by Dawn Porter, PBS, February 10, 2014, https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/spies-of-mississippi.
26. John Herbers, “Moderate Stand Give Negro Leaders Humes, Green Hot Time,” Delta Democrat-Times, July 28, 1957, https://www.newspapers.com/image/22364680.
27. Associated Press, “Sovereignty Commission Records Show Owner of Black Newspaper Worked for Group,” July 30, 1989, https://web.archive.org/web/20230623051312/https://apnews.com/article/2a4fd050a3da9757dd79536c94fe228f.
28. “Lisa K. Speer, Mississippi Encyclopedia, Center for Study of Southern Culture (published July 11, 2017, last updated April 14, 2018, accessed February 5, 2023), http://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/percy-greene.
29. Editorial, Mississippi Free Press archives, Vol. 1, No. 1, December 16, 1961, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/611216_mfp.pdf.
30. Ibid.
31. Carol Nunnelley, “Hazel Brannon Smith,” Encyclopedia of Alabama (published November 4, 2008, last updated March 27, 2023), http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1826.
32. Author interview with Rev. Ed King, 2021.
33. Carol Dalton Lyon, “Rev. Edwin King,” Mississippi Encyclopedia, Center for Study of Southern Culture, https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/ed-king.
34. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 163.
35. Ibid., 199.
36. Mathew J. Mancini, “Pig Law,” Mississippi Encyclopedia, Center for Study of Southern Culture (published July 11, 2017, last updated April 14, 2014), https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/pig-law.
37. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 201.
38. Ibid., 107–8.
39. Ibid., 202–3.
40. Ibid., 204.
41. Ibid., 202–11.
42. Author interview with Frank Figgers, Jackson, Mississippi, 2021.
43. Author interview with Derrick Johnson of the national NAACP, April 2023.
44. In 1946, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Morgan v. Virginia that segregation in interstate transportation was unconstitutional. This was followed in 1960 by the Court’s ruling in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation in the facilities provided for interstate travelers, including bus terminals, restrooms, and restaurants, was also unconstitutional. Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946); Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454 (1960).
CHAPTER 5: MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM
1. Author interviews with James Meredith, 2021.
2. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), 127.
3. Author interview with James Meredith Jackson, Mississippi, 2021.
4. “Early Year Rumors Prove to Be Correct,” Star-Herald (Kosciusko, MS), June 8, 1961, https://www.newspapers.com/image/274134389.
5. BlackPast, historical online archive, https://www.blackpast.org; Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 228.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Sophia Gardner, Brie Thompson-Bristol, and Kathy Roberts Forde, “How the Tougaloo Nine Transformed History,” Washington Post, May 23, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/05/23/how-tougaloo-nine-transformed-history.
9. Rev. Edwin King, interview, in “Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South,” Duke University, John Hope Franklin Research Center, records 1940–1997 and undated, bulk 1993–1997.
10. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 228.
11. Ibid.
12. Edmund Noel, “Nine Jailed in ‘Study In,’” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), March 28, 1961, https://www.newspapers.com/image/180073038.
13. Gardner, Thompson-Bristol, and Forde, “How the Tougaloo Nine Transformed History,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/05/23/how-tougaloo-nine-transformed-history.
14. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
15. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Melinda Blau, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be (New York: Little, Brown, 1999), 69.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 68–71.
19. Ibid., 70–71.
20. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
21. “John Michael Doar,” University of Mississippi, UM History of Integration, https://50years.olemiss.edu/2012/07/18/john-michael-doar.
22. FBI Files, Medgar Evers. Part 4 of 5, https://vault.fbi.gov/Medgar%20Evers.
23. FBI Files, Medgar Evers. Part 3 of 5, https://vault.fbi.gov/Medgar%20Evers.
24. “Mississippi Shocks Entire Nation,” Arizona Sun, April 6, 1961, https://www.newspapers.com/image/847353021.
25. “NAACP Operation Mississippi Gets Off to Fast Start Here,” Jackson Advocate, April 29, 1961, https://www.newspapers.com/image/835023028.
26. “Police Dogs Incidents Puts City in Spotlight,” Jackson Advocate, April 8, 1961, https://www.newspapers.com/image/835022881.
27. Ibid.
28. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 229.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 225–26.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., 226.
33. Raymond Arsenault, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006), 535.
34. American Experience, season 23, episode 13, “Meet the Players: Freedom Riders,” directed and written by Stanley Nelson, aired May 16, 2011, on PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/meet-players-freedom-riders.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 160–61.
38. Author interviews with Bernard Lafayette Jr., 2021.
39. Associated Press, “Stay in Non-Violence Workshop to Cleanse Self for Goal Ahead,” Greenwood Commonwealth, May 23, 1961, https://www.newspapers.com/image/256012497.
40. “Ross R. Barnett, “Oral History Interview—5/6/1969,” interview by Dennis O’Brien, May 6, 1969, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKOH/Barnett%2C%20Ross%20R/JFKOH-RRB-01/JFKOH-RRB-.
41. Marian Smith Holmes, “The Freedom Riders, Then and Now,” Smithsonian Magazine, February 2009, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-freedom-riders-then-and-now-45351758.
42. Bernard LaFayette Jr. and Kathryn Lee Johnson, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey to Selma (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 38.
43. Author interview with Fred Douglas Moore Clark Sr., 2021.
44. Author interview with Hezekiah Watkins, 2021.
45. Arsenault, Freedom Riders, 535–86.
46. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 233.
47. Ibid.
48. Roy Wilkins, letter to Harris Wofford, April 5, 1961, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, White House Staff Files of Harris Wofford, Alphabetical Files, 1956–1962, Roy Wilkins, December 1, 1960–March 15, 1962, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/education/leaders-in-the-struggle-for-civil-rights/roy-wilkins.
49. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 233.
50. Telephone Recordings: Dictation Belt 22B, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, President’s Office Files, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKPOF/TPH/JFKPOF-TPH-22A-4/JFKPOF-TPH-22A-4, and Part 2, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKPOF/TPH/JFKPOF-TPH-22B-1/JFKPOF-TPH-22B-1.
51. Ibid.
52. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 233.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid., 238.
55. Ibid., 236.
56. Ibid.
57. Marian Wright Edelman, “The Courage and Vision of Medgar Evers,” Huffington Post, February 8, 2013, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-courage-and-vision-of_b_2649092.
58. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 237–39.
59. Ibid.
60. “NAACP Files Suit to Desegregate Recreational Facilities in Jackson,” Mississippi Free Press, Vol. 1, No. 6, January 20, 1962, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/620120_mfp.pdf.
61. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 243.
62. Myrlie Evers with William Peters, For Us, the Living (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 255.
63. Ibid., 254.
64. Author interview with Frank Figgers.
65. Jerry Mitchell, interview, in Spies of Mississippi, directed by Dawn Porter, PBS, February 10, 2014.
66. Rick Bowers, interview, in Spies of Mississippi.
CHAPTER 6: FREEDOM FROM FEAR
1. “Ole Miss Will Integrate in July: NAACP Attorneys Gain 2–1 Decision. Meredith to Begin with Summer Session,” Mississippi Free Press, June 30, 1962, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/620630_mfp.pdf.
2. Charles Evers and Andrew Szanton, Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 117.
3. John R. Salter, Jr. (Hunter Gray), “Remembering Medgar Evers,” Against the Current, no. 165, July–August 2013, https://againstthecurrent.org/atc165/p3935.
4. Ibid.
5. Myrlie Evers with William Peters, For Us, the Living (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 242.
6. Ibid., 242–44.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Meredith Coleman McGhee, James Meredith: Warrior and the America That Created Him (Jackson, MS: Meredith Etc., 2013), 100–102.
10. Telephone Recordings: Dictation Belt 4C.1 (portion of telephone conversation between President Kennedy, Attorney General Kennedy, and Governor Barnett, September 28 or 29, 1962), John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, President’s Office Files, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKPOF/TPH/JFKPOF-TPH-04A-1/JFKPOF-TPH-04A-1.
11. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 244–45.
12. Ibid.
13. “Two Killed in Outbreak of Bias Riots at Ole Miss,” Courier-Post, October 1, 1962, https://www.newspapers.com/image/180764234.
14. Tom Dent, “Portrait of Three Heroes,” Freedomways (September 1965), https://www.crmvet.org/info/65_dent_3heroes.pdf.
15. “About James Meredith,” University of Mississippi, UM History of Integration, https://50years.olemiss.edu/james-meredith.
16. Ibid.
17. McGhee, James Meredith: Warrior, 77.
18. “Meredith Case Gets Publicity,” Star-Herald (Kosciusko, MS), December 20, 1962, https://www.newspapers.com/image/274717943.
19. McGhee, James Meredith: Warrior, 77.
20. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 116.
21. Nia Decaille, “Dorothy Gilliam Confronted Racism and Sexism as the First Black Female Reporter at the Washington Post,” Washington Post, March 7, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/08/double-handicap-dorothy-gilliam-being-first-black-female-reporter-washington-post.
22. Author interviews with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
23. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 228.
24. Darrell Evers, interviewed by Orlando Bagwell, April 3, 1986, in Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965, Film and Media Archive, Washington University in St. Louis, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston and Washington, D.C., http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-151-cv4bn9xv7m.
25. “Petition to Integrate Schools—Parents Want Equal Education for Children. 15 Students Also Sign; Enthusiasm High,” Mississippi Free Press, Vol. 1, No. 36, August 18, 1962, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/620818_mfp.pdf.
26. Ibid.
27. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 249–50.
28. Ibid., 250.
29. United Press International, “Mississippi Negroes Urged to Boycott State Fair,” New York Times, October 11, 1962, 30, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/10/11/94303185.html?pageNumber=30.
30. “Black Students, Community, Allies Begin Desegregating Jackson, Mississippi, 1962–1963,” Swarthmore College, Global Nonviolent Action Database, https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/black-students-community-allies-begin-desegregating-jackson-mississippi-1962-1963.
31. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), 264.
32. Ibid., 265.
33. James Baldwin, forward to Blues for Mister Charlie (New York: Dell, 1964), 7.
34. Dent, “Portrait of Three Heroes.”
35. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 273.
36. Ibid.
37. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 224–25.
38. “James Meredith Goes to College—Another Negro Went to Prison,” The New Republic, reprinted in the Vancouver Sun, November 15, 1962, https://www.newspapers.com/image/491684358.
39. Ibid.
40. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 273.
41. “Kennard Is Free,” Mississippi Free Press, Vol. 2, No. 8, February 2, 1963, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/630202_mfp.pdf.
42. Ibid.
43. “Barnett Orders Negro’s Release,” Pensacola News, January 29, 1963, 6, https://www.newspapers.com/image/263473373.
44. Larry Still, “Cancer-Stricken Miss. Prisoner Fights for Home State Education,” Jet, January 24, 1963, 20–23.
45. Dent, “Portrait of Three Heroes.”
46. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 270.
47. Ibid.
48. Dent, “Portrait of Three Heroes.”
49. “Kennard Is Free,” Mississippi Free Press, Vol. 2, No. 8, February 2, 1963, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/630202_mfp.pdf.
50. “Greene’s Ole Miss Bid Goes to Court,” Mississippi Free Press, Vol. 2, No. 9, February 9, 1963, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/630209_mfp.pdf.
51. “Courts to Be Asked to Open P. S. Here,” Mississippi Free Press, March 2, 1963.
52. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 245.
53. Adele Norris, “Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi: Seeing Anne’s Struggles as Our Own,” July 10, 2020, African American Intellectual History Society, Black Perspectives, https://www.aaihs.org/anne-moodys-coming-of-age-in-mississippi-seeing-annes-struggles-as-our-own.
54. “Local Jaycees Pledge Support to Thompson,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), May 21, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/185692469.
55. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 256–57.
56. Ibid.
57. Black students, community, allies begin desegregating Jackson, Mississippi, 1962–1963, Global Nonviolent Action Database. Swarthmore College, https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/black-students-community-allies-begin-desegregating-jackson-mississippi-1962-1963.
58. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 259.
59. Author interview with Rev. Ed King, 2021.
60. Ibid.
61. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 259.
62. Hunter Gray, “Cracking a Closed Society,” Against the Current, no. 98, May–June 2002, https://againstthecurrent.org/atc098/p1264.
63. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 258–61.
64. “Rights Group Demands End to Bias; Mayor Say All Is Fine,” Mississippi Free Press, May 18, 1963, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/630518_mfp.pdf.
65. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 266–67.
66. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 280–83.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 268–69.
CHAPTER 7: COUNTDOWN
1. “Rights Group Demands End to Bias; Mayor Say All Is Fine,” Mississippi Free Press, May 18, 1963, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/630518_mfp.pdf.
2. Myrlie Evers with William Peters, For Us, the Living (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 270–71.
3. Joe Holley, “Memphis Norman Dies,” Washington Post, January 28, 2005, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2005/01/28/memphis-norman-dies/6b7b656b-3bd5-4939-b1a9-8f3cd1e603a4.
4. Adele Norris, “Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi: Seeing Anne’s Struggles as Our Own,” July 10, 2020, African American Intellectual History Society, Black Perspectives, https://www.aaihs.org/anne-moodys-coming-of-age-in-mississippi-seeing-annes-struggles-as-our-own.
5. Hunter Gray, as told to Erica Buist, “That’s Me in the Picture: Hunter Gray Is Attacked at a Civil Rights Protest in Jackson, Mississippi, 28 May 1963,” Guardian, March 27, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/27/hunter-gray-1963-jackson-mississippi-sit-in.
6. Darrell Evers, interviewed by Orlando Bagwell, April 3, 1986, in Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965, Film and Media Archive, Washington University in St. Louis, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston and Washington, D.C., http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-151-cv4bn9xv7m.
7. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), 260.
8. Associated Press, “Another Negro Wins Ole Miss Admission,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), May 29, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/185717254.
9. Andrew Szanton, “Cleve McDowell, Civil Rights Man,” Medium, January 17, 2022, https://medium.com/@andrewszanton/cleve-mcdowell-civil-rights-man-b9ae8b43bb47.
10. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 273–77.
11. Ibid.
12. Charles Evers and Andrew Szanton, Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 113.
13. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 272.
14. Ibid., 278.
15. Ibid., 272.
16. City of Jackson vs. John R. Salter, Jr. et al. (1963) Salter v. City of Jackson, 253 Miss. 430, 176 So. 2d 63 (Miss. 1965).
17. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 282.
18. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 283–84.
19. Ibid., 284–85.
20. Associated Press, “Roy Wilkins Is Arrested at Jackson: NAACP Official Accused of Felony; D.C. Man Seized,” Washington Post and Times Herald (Jackson, MS), June 2, 1963, reprinted in Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 284–86.
21. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 280–81.
22. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Melinda Blau, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be (New York: Little, Brown, 1999), 76–77.
23. Ibid., 77.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 76.
26. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 286–89.
27. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 287–88.
28. Ibid., 289.
29. Michael Vinson Williams, Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2011), 264.
30. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 282–83.
31. Ibid., 284–85.
32. Ibid., 286–89.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., 292–93.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 294–96.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 290.
41. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 296–97.
42. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 261.
43. Jack Mendelsohn, The Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 71.
44. Williams, Medgar Evers, 279.
45. John R. Salter, Jr. (Hunter Gray), “Remembering Medgar Evers,” Against the Current, no. 165, July–August 2013, https://againstthecurrent.org/atc165/p3935.
46. Mendelsohn, Martyrs, 71.
47. John F. Kennedy, “Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights, June 11, 1963,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/televised-address-to-the-nation-on-civil-rights.
48. Salter, “Remembering Medgar Evers.”
49. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 125.
50. Mendelsohn, Martyrs, 72.
51. Author interview with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
52. Jerry Mitchell, “Simply ‘Daddy’: Reena Evers-Everette Shares Memories of Medgar,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 1, 2015, https://www.clarionledger.com/story/magnolia/2015/06/01/reena-evers-everette-memories-medgar/28326495.
53. Author interview with Carolyn Wells, 2021.
54. Mitchell, “Simply ‘Daddy.’”
55. Mendelsohn, Martyrs, 72–73.
56. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 305.
57. Ibid., 302–3.
58. Mendelsohn, Martyrs, 73.
59. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 304–5.
60. Ibid., 304.
61. Jerry Mitchell, “Medgar Evers: Assassin’s Gun Forever Changed a Family,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 12, 2013, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/06/02/medgar-evers-family-legacy/2378631.
CHAPTER 8: HOW TO BE A CIVIL RIGHTS WIDOW
1. Myrlie Evers with William Peters, For Us, the Living (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 306–7.
2. Ibid., 307–8.
3. “African Nationalist Urges Southern Negroes to Arm,” New York Times, June 13, 1963, 12, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/06/13/89925521.html?pageNumber=12.
4. John R. Salter, Jr. (Hunter Gray), “Remembering Medgar Evers,” Against the Current, no. 165, July–August 2013, https://againstthecurrent.org/atc165/p3935.
5. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 309–10.
6. Ibid., 310.
7. Claude Sitton, “N.A.A.C.P. Leader Slain in Jackson: Protests Mount, Whites Alarmed,” New York Times, June 13, 1963, 1, 12, https://timemachine.newyorktimes.com/timemachine/1963/06/13/issue.html.
8. Quoted in “Funeral and National Response,” National Parks Service, Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, https://www.nps.gov/memy/lear/historyculture/funeral-and-national-response.htm.
9. Sitton, “N.A.A.C.P. Leader Slain.”
10. “Not Forgotten: Medgar Evers, Whose Assassination Reverberated Through the Civil Rights Movement,” New York Times, July 2, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/obituaries/archives/medgar-evers-civil-rights.
11. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 310–12.
12. Sitton, “N.A.A.C.P. Leader Slain.”
13. “$5,000 Reward Offer Made as Youth Shot,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 16, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/185676808.
14. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 309.
15. Claude Sitton, “Whites Alarmed: Victim Is Shot from Ambush—158 Marchers Seized,” New York Times, June 12, 1964, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/06/13/89925420.html?pageNumber=1.
16. “Evers, Medgar Wiley,” Stanford University, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.
17. Film clip of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. responding to a reporter’s question about President John F. Kennedy’s speech on civil rights and the murder of Medgar Evers, WSB-TV (Atlanta, Georgia), June 12, 1963, Digital Library of Georgia, https://dlg.usg.edu/record/ugabma_wsbn_wsbn40931.
18. Associated Press, “Evers Murder Rifle Found: Jackson Police Press Search As .30 .30 Spotted in Weeds,” Greenwood Commonwealth, June 12, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/255009330.
19. Author interview with Senator Michael Mitchell, April 2023.
20. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 314.
21. Salter v. City of Jackson, opinion, June 7, 1963, Salter v. City of Jackson, 253 Miss. 430, 176 So. 2d 63 (Miss. 1965).
22. Author interview with Frank Figgers.
23. Author interview with Dennis Sweet III and Judge Denise Sweet Owens.
24. Darrell Evers, interviewed by Orlando Bagwell, April 3, 1986, in Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965, Film and Media Archive, Washington University in St. Louis, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston and Washington, D.C., http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-151-cv4bn9xv7m.
25. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 313.
26. Ibid., 314.
27. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters and Speeches (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), 299.
28. Charles Evers and Andrew Szanton, Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 134–35.
29. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 315.
30. Ibid., 314–15.
31. Ibid., 315–16.
32. Salter, “Remembering Medgar Evers.”
33. “Racial News Roundup: Protest Pace UP, Controls Tight,” Daily Press (Newport News, VA), June 16, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/232236931.
34. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 315.
35. “Racial News Roundup.”
36. Salter, “Remembering Medgar Evers.”
37. Author interview with Rev. Ed King.
38. Salter, “Remembering Medgar Evers.”
39. Rev. Edwin King, interview, in “Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South.” Duke University, John Hope Franklin Research Center, records 1940–1997 and undated, bulk 1993–1997.
40. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 317.
41. Ibid.
42. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 134.
43. Tom Dent, “Portrait of Three Heroes,” Freedomways, Second Quarter, 1965.
44. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 318.
45. “Funeral March Finishes in White-Led Agitation,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 16, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/185676808.
46. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 318.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 136.
50. Jackie Robinson, telegram to President John F. Kennedy, June 15, 1963, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, White House Central Name File, JFKWHCNF-2355-041, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHCNF/2355/JFKWHCNF-2355-041.
51. Salter, “Remembering Medgar Evers.”
52. Ibid.
53. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 319–21.
54. Ibid., 321–22.
55. Associated Press, “Evers’ Funeral Sparks Violence in Mississippi,” Gazette and Daily (York, PA), June 17, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/390077961.
56. Evers-Williams and Marable, Autobiography of Medgar Evers, 302–4.
57. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 323.
58. “Massive Turnout Urged to Greet Evers’ Body at Washington D.C.,” Gazette and Daily (York, PA), June 17, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/390077961.
59. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 323–24.
60. Ibid.
61. National Parks Service, https://www.nps.gov/memy/learn/historyculture/funeral-and-national-response.htm.
62. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 324.
63. Ibid.
64. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 126.
65. “Funeral and National Response,” https://www.nps.gov/memy/learn/historyculture/funeral-and-national-response.htm.
66. Jack Mendelsohn, The Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 80.
67. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 325–26.
68. Mendelsohn, Martyrs, 80–81.
69. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 325.
70. Ibid., 326–27.
71. Ibid., 328.
72. Ibid., 328–29.
73. Ibid., 333.
CHAPTER 9: A TRISTATE CONSPIRACY?
1. Dudley Lehew, “Californian Is Charged with Murder of Evers: Suspect Transferred to Jail in Jackson,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 24, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/185707358.
2. From the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Papers, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Mississippi Archives, Collection #Z/2231 000/S, Box 2.
3. Jack Mendelsohn, The Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 81.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at the Great March in Detroit, Michigan. June 23, 1963. Source: Walter P. Reuther Library, https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/7858.
7. Lehew, “Californian Is Charged.”
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Associated Press, “Seek Others in Slaying of Evers,” June 24, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/799964313.
11. Jane Biggers, “Greenwood Shocked—Neighbors Recall Beckwith as Outspoken Marine Vet,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 24, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/185707358.
12. Frank E. Smith, letter to Burke Marshall, June 26, 1963, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, White House Central Subject Files, HU: 2: ST 24: Mississippi: General, April 16, 1963, JFKWHCSF-0369-006-p0018, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHCSF/0369/JFKWHCSF-0369-006.
13. Ibid.
14. From the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Papers, Mississippi Archives, Collection #Z/2231 000/S, Box 2.
15. “Evers Suspect to Get Mental Tests,” Oakland Tribune, July 26, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/354477252.
16. From the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Papers, Mississippi Archives, Collection #Z/2231 000/S, Box 2, https://www.mdah.ms.gov/collections.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Don Whitehead, Attack on Terror: The FBI Against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi (Bronx, NY: Ishi Press International, 2012), 158.
22. “Evers Murdered: Civil Rights Leader Shot in Back,” Mississippi Free Press, June 15, 1963, https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mfp/630615_mfp.pdf.
23. Ibid.
24. From the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Papers, Mississippi Archives, Collection #Z/2231 000/S, Box 2, https://www.mdah.ms.gov/collections.
25. Whitehead, Attack on Terror, 22.
26. Ibid.
27. Bernard LaFayette Jr. and Kathryn Lee Johnson, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey to Selma (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 76.
28. Author interview with Bernard Lafayette, 2021.
29. Ibid.
30. Associated Press, “Beckwith Indicted for Murder,” Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), July 3, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/343888602.
31. Myrlie Evers with William Peters, For Us, the Living (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 339.
32. Ibid., 338.
33. “NAACP Jeers Chicago’s Mayor; Negro Clergyman Is Also Hooted at Rights Rally,” Baltimore Sun, July 5, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/376342583.
34. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 338.
35. Ibid., 342.
36. Ibid., 339.
37. Mendelsohn, Martyrs, 82.
38. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 344–47.
39. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Melinda Blau, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be (New York: Little, Brown, 1999), 78.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 340.
43. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 78.
44. “An Oral History of the March on Washington,” interviews by Michael Fletcher, videos by Ryan R. Reed, Smithsonian Magazine, July 2013, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/oral-history-march-washington-180953863.
45. Ted Gittinger and Allen Fisher, “LBJ Champions the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” National Archives, Prologue 36, no. 2 (Summer 2004), https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer.
46. “Oral History of the March on Washington.”
47. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 340–41.
48. Coretta Scott King as told to the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, My Life, My Love, My Legacy (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 115.
49. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 347–49.
50. Ibid., 351–53.
51. Ibid.
52. FBI Files: Medgar Evers, File Number 157-901, Pages 1-5, FOIA, Web Archive, https://web.archive.org/web/20221114104650/https://vault.fbi.gov/Medgar%20Evers/Medgar%20Evers%20Part%201%20of%205.
53. Associated Press, “White Man Held Over at Jackson: Innocent Plea Made to Charge in Evers Slaying,” Montgomery Advertiser, June 26, 1963, https://www.newspapers.com/image/256017038.
54. Medgar Evers, FBI files.
55. “Trials: Hung Jury,” Time, February 14, 1964, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,870731,00.html.
56. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 366–67.
57. Ibid., 368.
58. Ibid., 351.
59. An April 1963 assassination attempt against General Walker by Lee Harvey Oswald would later be cited by Oswald’s widow, Marina, who called Walker “a very bad man and a fascist” as proof that Oswald very much wanted to kill someone, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/01/01/106930338.html?pageNumber=11.
60. United Press International, “New Lawyer Gets Beckwith’s Case; Barnett’s Partner in Charge—Jury Selection Continues,” New York Times, April 8, 1964, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/04/08/97385690.html?pageNumber=30.
61. Medgar Evers, FBI file, April 14, 1963, report.
62. “Zinn—Mississippi ‘Chronology,’ 1963–1964,” Wisconsin Historical Society, Howard Zinn Papers, 1956–1994, Archives Main Stacks, Mss 588, Box 1, Folder 22, 3, https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/p15932coll2/id/11455.
63. Jerry Mitchell and Beverly Pettigrew Kraft, “Ex-Jurors Remember Beckwith’s 1964 Trials,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), January 31, 1994, https://www.newspapers.com/image/182664333.
64. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 369.
65. “Beckwith’s 2d Trial Ends in Hung Jury,” New York Times, April 18, 1964.
66. Don Whitehead, Attack on Terror: The FBI Against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi (Bronx, NY: Ishi Press International, 2012), 157–60.
67. M. Evers with Peters, For Us, the Living, 371–72.
68. Gittinger and Fisher, “LBJ Champions the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/civil-rights-act.
69. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 81.
70. Claude Sitton, “Rights Team’s Burned Car Found in Mississippi Bog; Dulles to Aid Hunt for 3,” New York Times, June 24, 1964, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/06/24/issue.html.
71. “N.A.A.C.P. Plans Protest,” New York Times, June 24, 1964, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/06/24/100204725.html?pageNumber=21.
72. “President Acts: Sends Ex-C.I.A. Head to South After Seeing Parents of Youths,” New York Times, June 24, 1964, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/06/24/100204451.html?pageNumber=1.
73. Whitehead, Attack on Terror, 157–62.
74. Jerry Mitchell, “Simply ‘Daddy’: Reena Evers-Everette Shares Memories of Medgar,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 1, 2015, https://www.clarionledger.com/story/magnolia/2015/06/01/reena-evers-everette-memories-medgar/28326495.
75. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 86–87.
76. Ibid., 88.
77. Ibid.
78. Mitchell, “Simply ‘Daddy.’”
79. Author interview with Carolyn Wells.
80. Eric Norden, “The Playboy Interview with Charles Evers,” Playboy (website), October 1, 1971, https://www.playboy.com/read/the-playboy-interview-with-charles-evers.
81. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 85.
82. Ibid.
CHAPTER 10: JUSTICE
1. Myrlie Evers-Williams and Melinda Blau, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be (New York: Little, Brown, 1999), 88–91.
2. Ibid., 92–93.
3. Ibid.
4. Myrlie Evers-Williams, foreword to Betty Shabazz: Surviving Malcolm X—A Journey of Strength from Wife to Widow to Heroine, by Russell J. Rickford (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2003), 400–402.
5. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 196
6. Lorraine Boissoneault, “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassination Sparked Uprisings in Cities Across America,” Smithsonian Magazine (website), April 4, 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/martin-luther-king-jrs-assassination-sparked-uprisings-cities-across-america-180968665.
7. Charles Evers and Andrew Szanton, Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 229.
8. Ibid., 227–29.
9. Ibid., 229.
10. Larry Tye, “The Most Trusted White Man in Black America,” Politico, July 7, 2016, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/robert-f-kennedy-race-relations-martin-luther-king-assassination-214021.
11. “James Baldwin: How to Cool It,” Esquire, July 1968, https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a23960/james-baldwin-cool-it.
12. Myrlie Evers-Williams, foreword to Betty Shabazz: Surviving Malcolm X, x.
13. Rickford, Betty Shabazz: Surviving Malcolm X, 402–3.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 120–25.
17. “Mrs. Evers to Run for Congress Seat,” New York Times, March 17, 1970, 32, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1970/03/17/76716164.html?pageNumber=32.
18. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 235.
19. Rickford, Betty Shabazz: Surviving Malcolm X, 400–402.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Jerry Mitchell, “Myrlie Evers Sees Vision of Her Late Husband, Medgar,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 14, 2014, https://www.clarionledger.com/story/journeytojustice/2014/06/14/medgar-evers-walter-williams/10532219.
24. Author interview with Myrlie Evers-Williams.
25. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 282–83.
26. Ibid.
27. “Bomb in Car ‘Astounds’ de la Beckwith,” South Mississippi Sun, January 18, 1974, https://www.newspapers.com/image/737086961.
28. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 197.
29. Ibid.
30. Author interview with Myrlie Evers-Williams.
31. Judith Cummings, “Los Angeles Council Election Seen as a Test for the Mayor,” New York Times, April 13, 1987, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1987/04/13/998487.html?pageNumber=15.
32. Victor Merina, “10th District Race a Test for Bradley, 13 Hopefuls,” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1987, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-23-me-8983-story.html.
33. Associated Press, “Evers Widow Loses Bid for Los Angeles Post,” New York Times, April 16, 1987, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1987/04/16/737687.html?pageNumber=19.
34. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 198–99.
35. Ibid.
36. “Myrlie Evers-Williams, Wife of Civil Rights Leader Killed in 1963, Sells ‘Magnificent’ Home in Bend,” Oregonian, January 28, 2013, https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2013/01/myrlie_evers-williams_wife_of.html.
37. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 200.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., 203.
40. Author interview with Jerry Mitchell.
41. Associated Press, “Medgar Evers’ Body Exhumed for Autopsy,” June 6, 1991, Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-06-mn-271-story.html.
42. Associated Press, “New Evers Autopsy Replaces Original, Reported as Missing,” New York Times, June 7, 1991, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/06/07/016191.html?pageNumber=16.
43. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 208.
44. Alan Huffman, “Gun, Under Glass,” Oxford American, no. 100 (Spring 2018), https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-100-spring-2018/gun-under-glass.
45. Byron De La Beckwith v. State of Mississippi, dissent by Chief Justice Dan Lee, March 26, 1998, De La Beckwith v. State, 707 So. 2d 547, 94 KA 402 (Miss. 1998).
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Ron Harrist, “Urgent: White Supremacist Byron De La Beckwith Convicted of Medgar Evers’ Murder,” February 5, 1994, https://webarchive.org/20230422142609/https://apnews.com/article/c18776f9f3cd1b5b312627ec5542dd84.
56. Associated Press, “Beckwith Convicted of Killing Medgar Evers,” Daily Advertiser, February 5, 1994, 7, https://www.newspapers.com/image/539926994/?terms=Beckwith%20Convicted%20Of%20Killing%20Medgar%20Evers&match=1.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.
62. Associated Press, “Dr. William F. Gibson; Civil Rights Leader, 69,” May 6, 2002, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/06/us/dr-william-f-gibson-civil-rights-leader-69.html.
63. Dana Priest, “Evers-Williams Vows to Revive NAACP,” Washington Post, February 19, 1995, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/02/19/evers-williams-vows-to-revive-naacp/a17b622e-1d97-40c7-92bc-98ce9c2a13f4.
64. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 249–50.
65. Author interview with Joe Madison.
66. Priest, “Evers-Williams Vows to Revive NAACP.”
67. Sam Fulwood III, “NAACP Elects Evers’ Widow to Top Post: Civil Rights: Myrlie Evers-Williams Wins by One Vote, Ousting William Gibson as Chairman. Change Is Seen as Opportunity to Redirect Group’s Focus. ‘It Is Time to Heal Our Wounds,’ She Says,” Los Angeles Times, February 19, 1995, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-02-19-mn-33896-story.html.
68. Sam Fulwood III, “Saving the NAACP: Myrlie Evers-Williams Goes Way Back with the NAACP. Now That She’s Talen Over, Can She Make It Important Again?,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1995.
69. Fulwood, “NAACP Elects Evers’ Widow to Top Post.”
70. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 249–50.
71. Ibid.
72. Krissah Thompson, “Myrlie Evers-Williams Leaves the NAACP Board After 30 Years. What Will She Do Next?” Washington Post, February 13, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/02/13/myrlie-evers-williams-leaves-the-naacp-board-after-30-years-what-will-she-do-next.
73. Priest, “Evers-Williams Vows to Revive NAACP.”
74. “Evers-Williams Sworn In to Lead NAACP,” Tampa Bay Times, May 15, 1995, https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1995/05/15/evers-williams-sworn-in-to-lead-naacp.
75. Ruben Castaneda, “Donations and Goodwill Flow as NAACP Inducts Chairman,” Washington Post, May 15, 1995, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/05/15/donations-and-goodwill-flow-as-naacp-inducts-chairman/142a9dc6-1482-44b4-8a78-660d5aaaf6ef.
76. Associated Press, “NAACP Has Retired Its Debt and Is Rebuilding,” Deseret News, October 20, 1996, https://www.deseret.com/1996/10/20/19272543/naacp-has-retired-its-debt-and-is-rebuilding.
77. Coretta Scott King as told to the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, My Life, My Love, My Legacy (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 322.
78. Author interview with Dr. Bernice King, March 4, 2022.
79. C. Evers and Szanton, Have No Fear, 227–29.
80. Scott King and Reynolds, My Life, My Love, My Legacy, 323.
81. Rickford, Betty Shabazz: Surviving Malcolm X, 530.
82. Scott King and Reynolds, My Life, My Love, My Legacy, 323.
83. Rickford, Betty Shabazz: Surviving Malcolm X, 530.
84. Evers-Williams and Blau, Watch Me Fly, 304.
85. Ibid.
86. New York Times News Service, “Grandson, 12, Admits Killing Shabazz but He Says Her Death Was Not Intended,” Baltimore Sun, July 11, 1997, https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-07-11-1997192109-story.html.
87. Myrlie Evers-Williams, foreword to Betty Shabazz: Surviving Malcolm X, x–xii.
88. Ibid.
89. Michael A. Fletcher, “Evers-Williams to Step Down as NAACP Chairman,” Washington Post, February 11, 1998, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/02/11/evers-williams-to-step-down-as-naacp-chairman/979f755d-0cd6-499c-8470-21f3b2cb9dfd.
CHAPTER 11: CARNEGIE HALL
1. Author interview with Jerry Mitchell, 2021.
2. Ibid.
3. Author interview with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.
4. Ibid.
5. Associated Press, “New Navy Ship to Be Named for Slain Civil Rights Pioneer,” New York Times, October 10, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/us/11evers.html.
6. Larry Tye, “The Most Trusted White Man in Black America,” Politico, July 7, 2016, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/robert-f-kennedy-race-relations-martin-luther-king-assassination-214021.
7. Myrlie Evers-Williams, interviewed by Michel Martin, in “Civil Rights Leaders React to Obama’s Win,” Tell Me More, NPR, November 5, 2008, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96645057.
8. Associated Press, “Darrell Evers; Slain Civil Rights Leader’s Son,” Los Angeles Times, February 19, 2001, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-19-me-27399-story.html.
9. Bruce Bennett, “A Civil Rights Heroine Carries Her Torch Song to the Stage,” Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2013, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324539304578260030290569810.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ashley Southall, “Paying Tribute to a Seeker of Justice, 50 Years After His Assassination,” New York Times, June 5, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/us/paying-tribute-to-a-seeker-of-justice-50-years-after-his-assassination.html.
14. Joy-Ann Reid, “Myrlie Evers-Williams: NAACP Apologized for Denying Security Detail for Medgar,” theGrio, June 16, 2013, https://thegrio.com/2013/06/16/myrlie-evers-naacp-apologized-for-denying-security-detail-for-medgar.
15. RT McNedd, “Myrlie Evers Meets with President Obama,” Michigan Chronicle, June 4, 2013, https://michiganchronicle.com/2013/06/04/fifty-years-after-the-assassination-of-civil-rights-activist-medgar-evers-president-obama-met-with-evers-widow-myrlie-evers.
16. Ibid.
17. Author interview with Myrlie Evers-Williams, 2021.