Student Name: Amelia MarajDate: January 21, 2011

MECPS, Mr. Jiang

He was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi.

Evers was born in Decatur, Mississippi in 1925. He enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II and fought in Europe.

In 1948, he entered Alcorn Agricutural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University) in Lorman, Mississippi. During his senior year, Evers married a fellow student, Myrlie Beasley; they later had three children: Darrell, Reena, and James.

He fought for equality and fought against brutality.

Between 1952 and 1963, Medgar Wiley Evers was one of the state’s most impassioned activist, orator, and visionary for change

He worked to promote the growth of adult-lead chapters and to encourage involvement of younger activists in local youth councils across the state. The inclusion of youth, Evers believed, was critical to a winning strategy in the crusade against Jim Crow.

The NAACP organizing travels convinced Evers that Jim Crow rendered the state a virtual closed society and that mobilizing at the grassroots level was essential for building a movement for social change.

When Evers assumed his position as state field secretary, he began an eight-year career in public life that was both demanding and frustrating. The 1950s proved frustrating and anxiety-laden as some white Mississippians responded with massive resistance to the civil rights activities of the NAACP and to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision which declared segregated schools unconstitutional

On June 22, 1963, Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens’ Council, was arrested and charged with the slaying of Medgar Evers. Beckwith was tried twice for Evers’s murder, first in February and later in April 1964.

On the morning of June 12, 1963, around 12:20 a.m., Medgar Evers arrived home from a long meeting at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church located at 2464 Kelley Street. He got out of his car, arms filled with “Jim Crow Must Go” T-shirts, and walked toward the kitchen door when a shot was fired from a high-powered rifle, striking Evers in the back.

Evers died shortly after 1:00 a.m. of loss of blood and internal injuries.

Medgar Evers College-1650 Bedford Avenue ("The Bedford Building"), a three story building completed in 1988, and The School of Business and Student Support Services Building

The College is presently located in three buildings, 1150 Carroll Street ("The Carroll Street Building"), a four-story building originally built as the Brooklyn Preparatory School in 1908.