“You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” -Medgar Evers
On June 12, 1963, civil rights hero Medgar Evers was shot in the back by a Klansman while standing in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississipi.
Evers had been warned several times by the KKK to stop his activism on behalf of black freedom. He had survived a Molotov cocktail tossed at his home, and an attempted automobile hit-and-run outside the NAACP offices where he served as a field secretary, but Evers was not intimidated by these terrorist acts — he refused to be silenced.
Evers’ wife, Myrlie, was widowed by the Klansman’s bullet, and his three children were left fatherless — a sacrifice they endured so that we all might enjoy the protection of the civil rights laws that were passed soon after his death.
A WWII Army veteran, Evers was buried on June 19, 1963, in Arlington National Cemetery where he received full military honors in front of a crowd of more than 3000 people.
Nearly half a century later, his widow Myrlie Evers-Williams stood before a crowd of over 1,000 people who gathered to witness the christening of the naval ship USNS Medgar Evers in San Diego on Nov. 12.
Naval officials, politicians, local citizens and members of the NAACP, listened to a speech honoring Evers by Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy.
The man who killed Medgar Evers evaded justice for nearly three decades, but he was tried and convicted in 1994 and died in prison in 2001 at 80 years of age. I chose not to print his name here — having just celebrated Veteran’s day on Friday, Nov. 11. I’d prefer to let the memory of a hateful man fade into obscurity even as the target of his hatred, Medgar Evers, has risen to the heights of glory as a much loved, respected and honored American hero and treasure. –kathleen cross
