Fifty years ago today — June 12th, 1963 — 37-year-old civil rights organizer Medgar Evers was assassinated in the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. In the early 1960s, Evers served as the first NAACP field secretary for Mississippi, where he worked to end segregation, fought for voter rights, struggled to increase black voter registration, led business boycotts, and brought attention to murders and lynchings. We hear from Edgers’ widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, on how she wants her husband to be remembered “a man for all time, one who was totally dedicated to freedom for everyone — and was willing to pay a price.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
Nermeen Shaikh: We end today’s show remembering the life of African-American civil rights activist Medgar Evers. In the early 1960s, Evers served as the first NAACP field secretary for Mississippi, where he worked to end segregation and fought for voter rights. It was 50 years ago today, June 12th, 1963, when the 37-year-old organizer was assassinated in his driveway.
Amy Goodman: I recently caught up with his widow, Myrlie Evers, at an NAACP dinner here in New York and asked her how people should remember her husband, for whom she sought justice for so many years.
Myrlie Evers-Williams: Well, what I would encourage young people to do is to go online and find out as much as they can about him, his contributions, to go, believe it or not, to their libraries and do research, and to say to them that he was a man of all time, one who was totally dedicated to freedom for everyone, and was willing to pay a price. And he knew what that price was going to be, but he was willing to pay it. As he said at one of his last speeches, “I love my wife, and I love my children, and I want to create a better life for them and all women and all children, regardless of race, creed or color.” I think that kind of sizes him up. He knew what was going to happen. He didn’t want to die, but he was willing to take the risk.
Amy Goodman: Talk about where he was coming from that night that he was killed in your driveway.
Myrlie Evers-Williams: Medgar was coming from a mass rally that we had two or three times a week, actually. And there had been a meeting after that session, and he was on his way home. I know how weary he was, because he got out of his car on the driver’s side, which was next to the road where the assassin was waiting, and we had determined quite some time ago that we should always get out on the other side of the car. And that night, he got out on the driver’s side with an armful of T-shirts that said “Jim Crow must go.” And that bullet struck him in his back, ricocheted throughout his chest, and he lasted 30 minutes after that. And the doctors said they didn’t know how he did. But he was determined to live. The good thing, his body is not here, but he still lives. And I’m very happy, proud and pleased to have played a part in making that come true.
Amy Goodman: Myrlie Evers, 50 years ago today, June 12th, 1963, her husband, the civil rights leader Medgar Evers, 37 years old, was assassinated in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy