We Salute You

Medgar Wiley Evers was born in Decatur, Miss. July 2, 1925. He attended school there until 1943 when he went into the army during World War II. After returning, he declared business administration as his major at Alcorn A&M College in Lorman, Miss. and participated in numerous extracurricular activities.Evers was a member of the college choir, the debate, football and track teams all while holding student offices. For two years, he was also editor of the campus newspaper. Evers met the woman he would marry, Myrlie Beasley while at Alcorn. They were married on Dec. 24, 1951. The following semester he graduated and they relocated to Mound Bayou, Miss. It was there that Evers started establishing local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Although the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that segregation in schools was unconstitutional, Evers was denied acceptance to the University of Mississippi Law School. It caught the eye of the national office of the NAACP. He was then appointed the first field secretary for the Mississippi.chapter. Evers moved to Jackson, Miss., and he and his wife worked together to build the NAACP office there. In Miss., Evers organized picket lines, boycotts, voter registration projects, marches and meetings with religious leaders and civil rights activists. Evers spoke about the need to overcome hatred and find peace and equality for all races, but his messages were greeted with hostility. Anonymous phone call threats became more frequent and his house was bombed, On June 12, 1963, Evers was returning home from a meeting with “Jim Crow Must Go” t-shirts in his hand when he was shot in the back in his front yard. According to www.africawithin.com, “The NAACP posthumously awarded its 1963 Spingarn medal to Medgar Evers. It was a fitting tribute to a man who had given so much to the organization and had given his life for its cause.”Medgar Evers’ spirit is still very much alive today. Evers was about peace, but his continuous fight against discrimination in public facilities, restaurants and schools is inspiration to us all to stand strong and remain dedicated at all costs.