Hello Group!
First of all, make sure your Wiki is up and running for Monday. We will be checking it during class. Second, please comment on this post with regard to the following:
1. Give a brief summary of your event that encapsulates your understanding. This should be in your own words.
2. Provide FIVE quotations (voices) that you think will be valuable additions to your script. Provide each quote and then explain who the speaker is and why the quote is relevant.
1. Medgar Evers participated in WW2 and when he came home, he noticed that black and white people were not doing anything together. Medgar and his family were tortured because they were a black family and Medgar was trying to stop all the racism. His family received telephone threats, and the threats had turned into violence. The night of Evers assassination, he was arriving home after midnight from a series of NAACP events.
ReplyDelete2. Quotes:
a. "People who lived through those days will tell you that something shifted in their hearts after Medgar Evers died, something that put them beyond fear....At that point a new motto was born: After Medgar, no more fear." The Eqsquire contributor, Maryanne Vollers wrote that quote.
b. "Medgar knew what he was doing, and he knew what the risks were. He just decided that he had to do what he had to do. But I knew at some point in time that he would be taken from me." Myrlie Evers, Medgar's wife, said this in the Ebony magazine. She knew that Medgar was doing something dangerous, but it is the right thing to do.
c. "If there should be resistance, how much better to have turbulence to effect improvement, rather than turbulence to maintain a stand-pat policy. We believe that there are white Mississippians who want to go forward on the race question. Their religion tells them there is something wrong with the old system. Their sense of justice and fair play sends them the same message. But whether Jackson and the State choose to change or not, the years of change are upon us. In the racial picture, things will never be as they once were." Evers was delivering a radio address about the NAACP. This is important because they want the state to change in a positive way. I am going to cut this quote down, I am just waiting to talk to the group
d. "A white man got more time for killing a rabbit out of season than for killing a Negro in Mississippi." This is said by and Evers associate commented in Esquire.
e. "My children turned out to be wonderfully strong and loving adults...It has taken time to heal the wounds [from their father's assassination]and I'm not really sure all the wounds are healed. We still hurt, but we can talk about it now and cry about it openly with each other, and the bitterness and anger have gone." This is said by Myrlie Evers. She told this to the Ebony magazine.
Medgar Evers was born on July 2, 1925, on a small farm in Decatur, Mississippi. He had 4 other siblings, a father who owned the farm, and was a sawmill worker, and a mother. He joined the US Army in 1943. He fought in France, and in the European Theater of WWII. He was then honorably discharged at the rank of sergeant in 1945. In 1946, he returned home. In 1948 he went to Alcorn College; majoring in Business Administration. He later married his classmate Myrlie Beasley in December 24, 1951. In the following year, he got his BA Degree. They both had 3 children: 2 boys, 1 girl. Medgar was a black-rights activist, who worked with the NAACP, and volunteered and ran boycotts. He was later shot in the back by Byron de la Backweth, a member of the KKK. This was when Medgar was living in Jackson, Mississippi, right outside of his home. Byron went to jail for life, and later died in jail.
ReplyDeleteQuotes (and links):
1. “Byron De La Beckwith, convicted assassin of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963, died tonight after he was transferred from his jail cell to a hospital. He was 80.”
http://www.rickross.com/reference/supremacists/supremacists40.html
This talks about Byron’s death, dying when he was being transferred to a hospital for his health.
2. “The Memphis Branch NAACP will hold a Medgar Evers Memorial Service at 8 p.m. Thursday night, June 12, at Centenary Methodist Church, 584 E. McLemore.”
http://www.crossroadstofreedom.org/view.player?coid=&pid=rds:78153&isUserOwned=&teiSearchWord=Medgar+Evers&displaySearchBox=true
This article from the Memphis World was put out in June 14, 1969. It tells about the NAACP holding a Memorial Service for Medgar Evers. It also says that this is 6 years after his assassination. Finally, this states that this will be one of the kick-off’s of the NAACP Membership campaign.
3. “At a brief planeside news conference when she arrived. Mrs. Evers said she believed it was easier for Negroes living in Mississippi "in these times" than for those living in such places as Los Angeles.”
http://www.crossroadstofreedom.org/view.player?coid=&pid=rds:43660&isUserOwned=&teiSearchWord=Medgar+Evers&displaySearchBox=true
This is another article from the Memphis World, which was printed out in March 7, 1964. It talked about how the wife of the late Medgar Evers arrived in LA to go to a ceremony for Medgar Ever’s death, and a street-naming for him in Compton. This also shows her out-reach to other areas where African Americans lived, and what she saw.
4. “Beckwith is accused of the sniper shooting of Evers, who was state field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP. Evers was killed last June 12 at the height of a series of racial demonstrations. Beckwith was arrested several days later.”
http://crossroadstofreedom.org/view.player?coid=&pid=rds:37465&isUserOwned=&teiSearchWord=Medgar+Evers&displaySearchBox=true
This article from the Memphis World was dated: November 16, 1963. It talks about the question of Beckwith’s mental stability, and the accusing of him for the assassination of Medgar Evers.
5. “Medgar W. Evers, who was killed yesterday, knew that his position as field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Jackson, Miss., was a dangerous one.”
https://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/browse_thread/thread/41a5b2e24ea69f85?hl=en
This is the obituary for Medgar Evers, which was printed in the New York Times on June 13, 1963. It talks about how Evers knew that him leading the civil rights movement would be a dangerous move where he lived, which evidently, led to him being shot.
The assassination of Medgar Evers, an NAACP member and decorated veteran of World War II, took place on Jun 12, 1963 at his home in Mississippi. His killer was a known KKK member, Byron De La Beckwith. Even as a KKK member, Byron was known for having an obsession in his segregationist beliefs. This killing would later affect future civil rights moments. As one of these effects, Evers' death would influence the requested future protection of Martin Luther King Jr as a note from Jackie Robinson to JFK.
ReplyDelete1. “Beckwith was committed to a Mississippi; state mental hospital last July for an examination to determine whether he was mentally capable of standing trial for the slaying of Evers.” (Memphis World) The speaker is a newspaper called Memphis World. This quote shows the killer, Beckwith, tried to get out of jail with a mental illness defense.
http://www.crossroadstofreedom.org/view.player?coid=&pid=rds:37465&isUserOwned=&teiSearchWord=medgar+evers&displaySearchBox=true
2. “Medgar W. Evers, NAACP field secretary at Jackson, Miss., will receive an achievement award at the 20th Anniversary of the American Veterans committee… May 30 to June 2.” (Memphis World) The speaker is a newspaper called Memphis World. This quote suggests that this announcement may have caught Beckwith's attention and began the assassination plot.
http://www.crossroadstofreedom.org/view.player?coid=&pid=rds:45896&isUserOwned=&teiSearchWord=medgar+evers&displaySearchBox=true
3. “Being a native Mississippian, and having lived there all of my life, except for the two and one half years when I proudly served my country in World War II, with the U.S. Army, I have been pleasant and delightful, but gruesome and unchanging.” (Medgar Evers 100) The speaker is Medgar Evers himself. This quote confirms that he served in World War II and is a veteran. It also shows a little about his personality at the end.
http://books.google.com/books?id=U9DsBWEzKMUC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=the+autobiography+of+medgar+evers+online&source=bl&ots=7eRrdpEB9W&sig=4RMPUNbHxXMDl8QFI1mScgxGd0M&hl=en&ei=wa5OTd3rLMH38Ab61sTZDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20autobiography%20of%20medgar%20evers%20online&f=false
4. “… a man, Byron D. Beckwirth, who was the assassin of Medgar Evers.” (Pat Cusick) The speaker is Pat Cusick who was one of the leaders of the 1963/1964 Civil Rights Movement. This quote declares Beckwith as the killer. This quote is intended for the narrator.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/playback.html?base_file=L-0043
5. “By that was meant Beckwith’s segregationist obsessions… In pursuit of his obsessions, Beckwith passed out racist pamphlets that he wrote himself, launched such an aggressive recruiting drive for the local white Citizens Council that its officers finally asked him to desist." (Time Magazine) The speaker was Time Magazine. This quote sheds some light on the killer, Beckwith, and his background. It shows that Beckwith had an overly obsessive history with segregation.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875008-2,00.html
Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist dedicated to voter's rights. He advocated for equality and made it his mission to make sure that every American was able to vote. The WWII veteran was assassined by a white supremacist (member of the KKK) Byron De La Beckwith when Evers was returning home from a meeting on June 12, 1963.
ReplyDelete1. “It may sound funny, but I love the South. I don’t choose to live anywhere else. There’s land here, where a man can raise cattle, and I’m going to do it some day. There are lakes where a man can sink a hook and fight the bass. There is room here for my children to play and grow, and become good citizens—if the white man will let them....”
http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/evers_medgar/index.html
2. "Medgar didn't want to be a martyr. But if he had to die to get us that far, he was willing to do it." -Myrlie Evers (wife)
"I was born in Decatur here in Mississippi, and when we were walking to school in the first grade white kids in their school buses would throw things at us and yell filthy things...”
-Medgar Evers
http://www.africawithin.com/bios/medgar_evers.htm
3. "Every Negro in town was supposed to get the message from those clothes and I can see those clothes now in my mind's eye. But nothing was said in public. No sermons in church. No news. No protest. It was as if this man just dissolved except for his bloody clothes." -Medgar Evers
"It seemed that this (racism) would never change. It was that way for my daddy, it was that way for me and it looked as though it would be that way for my children. I was so mad that I just stood there trembling and tears rolled down my cheeks." -Medgar Evers
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medgar_evers.htm
4. “Evers was outspoken, and his demands were radical for his rigidly segregated state. He fought for the enforcement of the 1954 court decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which outlawed school segregation; he fought for the right to vote, and he advocated boycotting merchants who discriminated...”
http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/evers_m.htm
5."Freedom has never been free . . . I love my children and I love my wife with all my heart.”
-Medgar Evers
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/missippi.html