Myrlie Evers-Williams on the 45th Anniversary of Murder of Her Husband

[EFerrari]

Myrlie Evers-Williams on the 45th Anniversary of Murder of Her Husband, Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers

Forty-five years ago today, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
Evers fought segregation of schools and public places, struggled to increase black voter registration, led business boycotts, and brought attention to the murders and lynchings, like the slaying of black teenager Emmet Till. We speak to Medgar Evers’ widow, the civil rights activist Myrlie Evers-Williams.

Forty five years ago today, June 12th 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. He was 37 years old.Evers was killed at the close of an important day in the civil rights movement. Earlier that day, Alabama Segregationist Governor George Wallace stood on the steps of the state’s all white University and tried to block the admission of two black students. That night, President Kennedy delivered an impassioned speech defending the Federal Government’ s intervention on behalf of the students. He spoke of a “moral crisis” facing the nation.

Evers was killed by a white supremacist named Byron De La Beckwith. He was tried twice for murder in 1964, but both ended in mistrials because the all-white juries could not reach a verdict. He was convicted of murder 30 years later.

Medgar Evers became an NAACP leader in 1954 after the all-white University of Mississippi rejected his law school application. Evers fought segregation of schools and public places, struggled to increase black voter registration, led business boycotts, and brought attention to the murders and lynchings, like the slaying of black teenager Emmet Till. The day before he died, Evers was on the coast, planning a protest to allow African-Americans access to Mississippi’s public beaches.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/12/myrlie_evers_williams_on_the_45th