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He too produced witnesses—one of them a policeman—who swore before the court that Beckwith was some 60 miles from Evers’s home on the night he was killed. See John F. Kennedy’s first draft, partially handwritten, letter of condolence to Medgar Evers’ widow here.

It’s critical work. We are educating as many people as possible about their voting rights, as we did with our get-out-the-vote efforts in Mississippi and Florida.

This time, justice was done. We connected it to a man named Byron De La Beckwith based on its similarity to his military service prints. It’s also a reminder that we must ensure that the work of Medgar Evers – and others who stood up for our right to vote – was not in vain.

He staggered up to the steps of the house, then collapsed. A number of police, FBI experts, and others testified on different parts of the evidence against Beckwith. It is my sincere hope that one day everyone in America will have the unfettered right to vote. As deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Voting Rights Practice Group, I advocate for equal voting rights and fight voter suppression.

As he began the short walk up to his single-story rambler, the bullet struck Evers in the back. 5.

The FBI again provided its assistance.

This death, coming just hours after a speech on civil rights by President John F. Kennedy, sparked a national outpouring of mourning and outrage.

It was June 12, 1963, in a suburban neighborhood of Jackson, Mississippi. With the obvious motive, his fingerprint on the weapon, the injury around his eye, his planning, and other factors, Beckwith clearly appeared to be the killer. He was on Mississippi's top kill list for challenging Jim Crow laws and being the field secretary of the NAACP. Unfortunately, we continue to live in a separate and unequal society as evidenced in our neighborhoods, schools, jobs and – perhaps most horrifying – in our prisons and jails. Byron De La Beckwith, a segregationist and member of the Ku Klux Klan, shot and killed Evers in cold blood. Evers, a civil rights activist was assassinated on June 12, 1963, by a Ku Klux Klan member. 345-348.

Evers’ widow, Myrlie—a formidable civil rights organizer in her own right—asked local prosecutors to reopen the investigation and see if other evidence could be found.

Claim: A photograph shows the bedroom of the sons of murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers's house at 2332 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive, where the activist was fatally shot after getting out of his car. Our current criminal justice system is one of the most inhumane examples of how racial discrimination operates and can ruin people’s lives forever. When you add laws that prohibit people with a criminal conviction from voting, it’s practically the same system as during slavery – Black people who have lost their freedom and cannot vote.

In two separate trials, local prosecutors presented a strong case. In December 1990, a new grand jury returned an indictment against Beckwith based on witnesses finally willing to tell their stories, including hearing the white supremacist brag how he had killed Medgar Evers.

Evers died fifty minutes later at the hospital. Several witnesses placed Beckwith in Evers’s neighborhood that night. He served as the NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi—organizing protests and voter registration drives, recruiting new workers into the civil rights movement, and pushing for school integration. The recoil from the Enfield rifle he had just fired drove the scope into his eye, badly bruising him.

Across the street on a lightly wooded hill, another man jumped up in pain. That same night, [Medgar] Evers returned home just after midnight from a series of NAACP functions. We have reignited our SPLC on Campus program through the distribution of voting materials, recruitment and training of college students as election protection volunteers, organizing events (now more virtually) related to the census and redistricting, and listening to young people to understand the issues they care about and connecting them with the resources to advance their own agendas. It’s the same kind of hope that Evers displayed when he returned from fighting for his country in World War II to vote in an election even though he and his friends were turned away from the polling place at gunpoint. At the SPLC, we’ve sued the states of Florida and Mississippi whose felon disenfranchisement laws were expanded for the primary purpose of denying as many Black citizens the right to vote as possible.

He mobilized people who were afraid that merely saying no to the next indignity would result in their death.

A 37-year-old civil rights activist named Medgar Evers had just come home after a meeting of the NAACP. “The children ran out and were shouting, ‘Daddy, get up!”‘.

FBI Records related to Medgar Evers' murder (The Vault), (1) “Medgar Evers.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. My parents are from Ghana and my dad was very active in the Pan-African movement.

(1), Picture credits: John Loengard—LIFE Images, Picture credits: John Loengard—LIFE Images. 2nd ed. Vol.

Find related documents from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum here. By the early 1990s, however, the time was ripe to revisit the case. We were successful in challenging a poll tax law in Florida in which the court held that requiring people who lack the financial means to pay off certain debts cannot be the basis for denying them the right to vote. Back at the station, a fingerprint was recovered from the scope and submitted to the FBI. In terms of my role at the SPLC, he taught me that electing a particular candidate is not the end goal. Backed by federal troops, he led efforts to help James Meredith successfully integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962. However, we are also implementing a new model of community engagement, where we really listen and respond to what the community’s needs are and implement effective means to address the problems that people are experiencing. The need for it was recently exemplified in Fulton County, Georgia, as long lines of voters waited for hours – at once an atrocious example of the mismanagement of a critical government function and a beautiful display of the American spirit as people of all races and ages endured the heat or storm clouds to cast a ballot. On the other hand, Beckwith denied shooting Evers and claimed that his gun had been stolen days before the incident. But his death in 1963 was not in vain. He dropped the weapon and fled. Throughout my career, I have come to realize – like Evers did – that nearly everything in the multifaceted fight for civil rights boils down to this: Elected officials continue to promote policies that are totally at odds with their constituents’ needs and often violate their civil and human rights. The NAACP posthumously awarded its 1963 Spingarn medal to Medgar Evers. Politicians enjoy great power, but that power ultimately comes from the people which is why the mantra “Power to the People” still resonates with so many of us today.

We’re also working on a vote-from-jail project that will increase access to the polls for people who are incarcerated but still eligible to cast a ballot. He was arrested several days later. I marveled at the long lines of people wrapping around street corners to vote for him. As the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi, he tirelessly led marches, prayer vigils, voter registration drives and boycotts, and persistently appealed to Black and white people to work together for a peaceful solution to social problems. The murder of Medgar Ever was a loss to his family, the community, and the nation. Although Beckwith was arrested for the crime, two all-white juries could not reach a verdict in 1964.

At the end of the day, Evers was an organizer. He was shot in the back by a sniper in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi. Consider our event spaces for your next event.

As our recent report found in Alabama, there are many ways in which elected officials are still suppressing the vote in the 21st century. On the other side of the globe, in 2008, we saw people come out in droves to elect and then celebrate the first Black president in America.

The true destination is living in a world of mutual respect and peace. For more information:- FBI Case Records on Medgar Evers, FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. government, U.S. Department of Justice, ND-98: Case of the Long Island Double Agent, International Cyber Ring That Infected Millions of Computers Dismantled. He advocated for the release of prisoners whose only crime was daring to demand the right to vote and have a say in their destiny.

And without access to the ballot, a victim of the system cannot elect the very officials pulling the levers to hire the police, determine which cases are prosecuted and what sentences are imposed. Beckwith went free. Rewards were offered by the governor of Mississippi and several all-white newspapers for information about Evers’s murderer, but few came forward with information. He organized a major boycott of white merchants, making him a target of the Ku Klux Klan.

It was June 12, 1963, in a suburban neighborhood of Jackson, Mississippi.

He did it peacefully and because of his love for all of humanity. As deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Voting Rights Practice Group, I advocate for equal voting rights and fight voter suppression. It was a fitting tribute to a man who had given so much to the organization and had given his life for its cause.

District Attorney and future governor Bill Waller prosecuted De La Beckwith.

Detroit: Gale, 2004.

My passion for political participation started from a more global, human rights centered perspective.

As I reflect on the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers 57 years ago this week, I look forward to the day when my job will no longer exist.

On June 21, 1963 Byron De La Beckwith, a fertilizer salesman and member of the White Citizens' Council (and later of the Ku Klux Klan), was arrested for Evers's murder.

As I reflect on the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers 57 years ago this week, I look forward to the day when my job will no longer exist.

On June 12, 1963, U.S. president John F. Kennedy—who would be assassinated only a few short months later—called the white resistance to civil rights for blacks “a moral crisis” and pledged his support to federal action on integration. That same night, [Medgar] Evers returned home just after midnight from a series of NAACP functions.