Download or read book The Autobiography of Medgar Evers written by Myrlie Evers-Williams and published by Civitas Books. This book was released on 2006-08-29 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Remembering Medgar Evers written by Minrose Gwin and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2013-02-25 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Medgar Evers written by Michael Vinson Williams and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Watch Me Fly written by Myrlie Evers-Williams and published by Little Brown. This book was released on 1999 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book For Us the Living written by Myrlie Evers Williams and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2023-07-14 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Never Too Late written by Bobby Delaughter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-09-16 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States 1889 1918 written by National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Race Against Time written by Jerry Mitchell and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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.
Download or read book Ghosts of Mississippi written by Maryanne Vollers and published by Little Brown & Company. This book was released on 1995 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book T R M Howard written by David T. Beito and published by Independent Institute. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book I ve Got the Light of Freedom written by Charles M. Payne and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This momentous work offers a groundbreaking history of the early civil rights movement in the South. Using wide-ranging archival work and extensive interviews with movement participants, Charles Payne uncovers a chapter of American social history forged locally, in places like Greenwood, Mississippi, where countless unsung African Americans risked their lives for the freedom struggle. The leaders were ordinary women and men--sharecroppers, domestics, high school students, beauticians, independent farmers--committed to organizing the civil rights struggle house by house, block by block, relationship by relationship. Payne brilliantly brings to life the tradition of grassroots African American activism, long practiced yet poorly understood. Payne overturns familiar ideas about community activism in the 1960s. The young organizers who were the engines of change in the state were not following any charismatic national leader. Far from being a complete break with the past, their work was based directly on the work of an older generation of activists, people like Ella Baker, Septima Clark, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, Aaron Henry. These leaders set the standards of courage against which young organizers judged themselves; they served as models of activism that balanced humanism with militance. While historians have commonly portrayed the movement leadership as male, ministerial, and well-educated, Payne finds that organizers in Mississippi and elsewhere in the most dangerous parts of the South looked for leadership to working-class rural Blacks, and especially to women. Payne also finds that Black churches, typically portrayed as frontrunners in the civil rights struggle, were in fact late supporters of the movement.
Download or read book We Shall Not Be Moved written by M. J. O'Brien and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2014 Lillian Smith Book Award Once in a great while, a photograph captures the essence of an era: Three people—one black and two white—demonstrate for equality at a lunch counter while a horde of cigarette-smoking hotshots pour catsup, sugar, and other condiments on the protesters' heads and down their backs. The image strikes a chord for all who lived through those turbulent times of a changing America. The photograph, which plays a central role in the book's perspectives from frontline participants, caught a moment when the raw virulence of racism crashed against the defiance of visionaries. It now shows up regularly in books, magazines, videos, and museums that endeavor to explain America's largely nonviolent civil rights battles of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Yet for all of the photograph's celebrated qualities, the people in it and the events they inspired have only been sketched in civil rights histories. It is not well known, for instance, that it was this event that sparked to life the civil rights movement in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963. Sadly, this same sit-in and the protest events it inspired led to the assassination of Medgar Evers, who was leading the charge in Jackson for the NAACP. We Shall Not Be Moved puts the Jackson Woolworth's sit-in into historical context. Part multifaceted biography, part well-researched history, this gripping narrative explores the hearts and minds of those participating in this harrowing sit-in experience. It was a demonstration without precedent in Mississippi—one that set the stage for much that would follow in the changing dynamics of the state's racial politics, particularly in its capital city.
Download or read book The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi written by Ted Ownby and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays from innovative, leading scholars covering the gamut of the civil rights movement
Download or read book Coming of Age in Mississippi written by Anne Moody and published by Dell. This book was released on 2011-09-07 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unforgettable memoir of a woman at the front lines of the civil rights movement—a harrowing account of black life in the rural South and a powerful affirmation of one person’s ability to affect change. “Anne Moody’s autobiography is an eloquent, moving testimonial to her courage.”—Chicago Tribune Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi, Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil rights era in the South. The week before she began high school came the news of Emmet Till’s lynching. Before then, she had “known the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil. But now there was . . . the fear of being killed just because I was black.” In that moment was born the passion for freedom and justice that would change her life. A straight-A student who realized her dream of going to college when she won a basketball scholarship, she finally dared to join the NAACP in her junior year. Through the NAACP and later through CORE and SNCC, she experienced firsthand the demonstrations and sit-ins that were the mainstay of the civil rights movement—and the arrests and jailings, the shotguns, fire hoses, police dogs, billy clubs, and deadly force that were used to destroy it. A deeply personal story but also a portrait of a turning point in our nation’s destiny, this autobiography lets us see history in the making, through the eyes of one of the footsoldiers in the civil rights movement. Praise for Coming of Age in Mississippi “A history of our time, seen from the bottom up, through the eyes of someone who decided for herself that things had to be changed . . . a timely reminder that we cannot now relax.”—Senator Edward Kennedy, The New York Times Book Review “Something is new here . . . rural southern black life begins to speak. It hits the page like a natural force, crude and undeniable and, against all principles of beauty, beautiful.”—The Nation “Engrossing, sensitive, beautiful . . . so candid, so honest, and so touching, as to make it virtually impossible to put down.”—San Francisco Sun-Reporter
Download or read book Local People written by John Dittmer and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the monumental battle waged by civil rights organizations and by local people to establish basic human rights for all citizens of Mississippi
Download or read book Remembering Medgar Evers for a New Generation written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Little Taste of Freedom written by Emilye Crosby and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2006-05-26 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this long-term community study of the freedom movement in rural, majority-black Claiborne County, Mississippi, Emilye Crosby explores the impact of the African American freedom struggle on small communities in general and questions common assumptions that are based on the national movement. The legal successes at the national level in the mid 1960s did not end the movement, Crosby contends, but rather emboldened people across the South to initiate waves of new actions around local issues. Escalating assertiveness and demands of African Americans--including the reality of armed self-defense--were critical to ensuring meaningful local change to a remarkably resilient system of white supremacy. In Claiborne County, a highly effective boycott eventually led the Supreme Court to affirm the legality of economic boycotts for political protest. NAACP leader Charles Evers (brother of Medgar) managed to earn seemingly contradictory support from the national NAACP, the segregationist Sovereignty Commission, and white liberals. Studying both black activists and the white opposition, Crosby employs traditional sources and more than 100 oral histories to analyze the political and economic issues in the postmovement period, the impact of the movement and the resilience of white supremacy, and the ways these issues are closely connected to competing histories of the community.
