• Blog
  • NIGHT OF THE GOLDEN GHETTO
  • SLURRED
  • THE SHAPE-UP
  • My Bio
  • Contact
  • Acknowledgements
Andrew Hill

How Justice Finally Arrived for Medgar Evers on February 5, 1994, Nearly 31 Years After His Death

2/6/2018

0 Comments

 
Probably only a few remember that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote a poem  called "Retribution."  But that's the one I'm reminded of when I recall the final outcome of this decades-long tragedy.  The story of Medgar Evers resonates tellingly in 2018 as we mark a Black History Month shrouded with the deaths of too many African-Americans at the hands of white police officers,   There is this thing, you see, called karma, which Longfellow clearly understood.

Though the mills of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.
PictureFirst page draft of Welty's short story
FROM HISTORY.COM

On this day in 1994, white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith is convicted in the murder of African-American civil rights leader Medgar Evers, over 30 years after the crime occurred. Evers was gunned down in the driveway of his Jackson, Mississippi, home on June 12, 1963, while his wife, Myrlie, and the couple's three small children were inside.

Medgar Wiley Evers was born July 2, 1925, near Decatur, Mississippi, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After fighting for his country, he returned home to experience discrimination in the racially divided South, with its separate public facilities and services for blacks and whites. Evers graduated from Alcorn College in 1952 and began organizing local chapters of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). In 1954, after being rejected for admission to then-segregated University of Mississippi Law School, he became part of an NAACP campaign to desegregate the school. Later that year, Evers was named the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. He moved with his family to Jackson and worked to dismantle segregation, leading peaceful rallies, economic boycotts and voter registration drives around the state. In 1962, he helped James Meredith become the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, a watershed event in the civil rights movement. As a result of his work, Evers received numerous threats and several attempts were made on his life before he was murdered in 1963 at the age of 37.

Beckwith, a fertilizer salesman and Ku Klux Klan member widely believed to be the killer, was prosecuted for murder in 1964. However, two all-white (and all-male) juries deadlocked and refused to convict him. A second trial held in the same year resulted in a hung jury. The matter was dropped when it appeared that a conviction would be impossible. Myrlie Evers, who later became the first woman to chair the NAACP, refused to give up, pressing authorities to re-open the case. In 1989, documents came to light showing that jurors in the case were illegally screened.

Prosecutor Bobby DeLaughter worked with Myrlie Evers to force another prosecution of Beckwith. After four years of legal maneuvering, they were finally successful. At the third trial they produced a riflescope from the murder weapon with Beckwith's fingerprints, as well as new witnesses who testified that Beckwith had bragged about committing the crime. Justice was finally achieved when Beckwith was convicted and given a life sentence by a racially diverse jury in 1994. He died in prison in 2001 at the age of 80.

There's plenty more about this tragic incident online, but I'd like to call your attention to a work of fiction by Eudora Welty, which tells the story of Evers' assassination from the assassin's point of view.  "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" was first published in the New Yorker magazine in  July 6, 1963, shortly after Evers' death.  It's read here by Joyce Carol Oates after a brief discussion with Deborah Treisman, the magazine's fiction editor.  Even now, all these years later, the story resonates chillingly. Definitely worth a look or a listen given today's troubling times.






0 Comments
Leave a Reply.
If you’re reading this website, think of me as a troubadour standing on the street corner, strumming a guitar and singing a few songs.  Not everyone who comes this way is able to make contribution.  But if you’re one of the passers-by who can, then feel free to drop a little spare change in my hat by clicking either the Donate or the Become a Patron button below.  Thank you!


SHOPPING

SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
To be notified of new posts to this blog


Name:
Email: We respect your email privacy
Email Marketing by AWeber


ArchivesJanuary 2018
October 2017
September 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
May 2016
April 2016
January 2016
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
October 2014
September 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013


OTHER GREAT WEB SITES & BLOGS I ENJOY:
Rhys Tranter
Pam Perkins
Ann Cavitt Fisher
Brain Pickings - Maria Popova

CategoriesAll
Andre Rieu
Andrew Stanton
Ang Lee
Anne Hathaway
Anne Rice
Annie Leibovitz
Ann Patchett
A&P
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man
Archibald MacLeish
Aretha Franklin
Armistead Maupin
Art
Arthur Miller
Art Tatum
Arturo Sandoval
Auguste Rodin
Avery Brooks
Basquiat
Ben Kingsley
Betty White
Bibi Andersson
Bill Murray
Billy Taylor
Blanche Dubois
Blind Willie
Blue Danube
Bobby Seale
Bonjour
Breakfast At Tiffany's
Bruce Springsteen
Buried Child
Burt Lancaster
Calista Flockhart
Candice Bergen
Carmen
Carnal Knowledge
Carol Burnett
Carrie
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Deneuve
Celia Cruz
Charles Ives
Charles McGrath
Charles Schultz
Charleton Heston
Charlie Rose
Charlotte Bronte
Cherry Jones
Chicago
Civil Rights
Clark Terry
Coco Chanel
Coffee Shop Prank
Cointelpro
Commentary
Crossroads
Current Events
Daniel Ellsberg
Dashiell Hammett
Dave Brubeck
David Letterman
Death In Venice
Death Penalty
Deborah Treisman
Deepak Chopra
Dennis Haysbert
Dennis Quaid
Derek Jacobi
Devil Wears Prada
D.H. Lawrence
Diana Krall
Dick Cavett
Dizzy Gillespie
Donald Trump Tape
Donny Hathaway
Dostoevsky
Downton Abbey
Downton Sixbey
Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
Dumbledore
Dune
Dymaxion Car
Earl Lloyd
Edward Fox
Edward Snowden
Eileen Atkins
Elie Wiesel
Eliot Preludes
Emily's Monologue From Our Town
Emma Stone
Esperanza Spalding
Ethel Waters
Eugene Ionesco
Eugene O'Neill
Famous Birthdays
Far From Heaven
Fifty Shades Of Grey
Film Reviews
Firing Line
First Kiss
Frank Herbert
Franz Liszt
Fred Astaire
George Bernard Shaw
George Foreman
George Gershwin
Georges Bizet
Georges Braques
George S. Kaufman
Georges Seurat
Ghost
Gilda Radner
Gloria Steinem
Gone With The Wind
Gunfight At Ok Corral
Hamlet
Happy Birthday Mr. President
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harrison Ford
Harry Chapin
H. G. Wells
Historical Figures & Events
Horowitz
Howard Rollins
Ideas Worth Thinking About
If You Leave Me Now
Imagine
In Cold Blood
Ingmar Bergman
Innocence Project
Interview With A Vampire
Jack Nicholson
Jack Paar
James Joyce
Jane Eyre
Jazz Messengers
Jean Rhys
Jean Seberg
Jelly Roll Morton
Jfk
Jimmy Fallon
Joe Louis
Johann Strauss
John Barrymore
John Brown
John Coltrane
John Le Carre
John Lennon
John Malkovich
Johnny Carson
John Updike
Joseph Campbell
Joseph Conrad
Jr.
Judith Jamison
Julian Fellowes
Julianne Moore
Julian Schnabel
Julie Harris
Katherine Hepburn
Kathleen Battle
Katy Perry
Keith Jarrett
Kierkegaard
Krishnamurti
Kublai Khan
Kurt Vonnegut
Lady Chatterley
La Negra Tiene Tumbao
Laura Esquivel
Leap Of Faith
Lee Strasberg
Leonard Bernstein
Leonardo Dicaprio
Letter From A Birmingham Jail
Like Water For Chocolate
Lorne Michaels
Louis Auchincloss
Madame Bovary
Mahalia Jackson
Malcom X
Maria Callas
Marilyn Monroe
Marissa Berenson
Martin Luther King
Martin Scorcese
Mary Wells
Medea
Melba Moore
Michael Crichton
Michael Gambon
Michael Jackson
Michelangelo
Mike Nichols
Modernism
Moms Mabley
Montgomery Clift
Moss Hart
Muhammad Ali
Murphy Brown
Muses & Music
Music
My Dinner With Andre
Nathaniel West
Nat King Cole
Nelson Mandela
New Yorker Fiction Podcast
Nietzsche
Night At The Opera
Night In Tunisia
Orson Welles
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde Released
Otto Preminger
Our Town
Pappano
Pascal Ferran
Pat Conroy
Paul Desmond
Paul Simon
Peanuts
Penelope Ann Miller
Penny Marshall
Peter Jackson
Pete Seeger
Picasso
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Playing With Dynamite
Pope John Xxiii
Presidential Politics
Prufrock
P-word
Race
Rachel Mcadams
Rape Culture
Ray Charles
Rex Harrison
Rfk
Rhinoceros
Richard Dreyfus
Rimbaud
Robert Johnson
Robert Kennedy
Robert Louis Stevenson
Roger Angell
Rumble In The Jungle
Ryan O'Neal
Sacco & Vanzetti
Saint Joan
Sally Hemings
Sam Shepard
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sartre
Saturday Night Live
Scarlett O'Hara
Scopes Monkey Trial
Sense And Sensibility
Serena Williams
Sexual Assault
Sherlock Holmes
Shirley Jackson
Sissy Spacek
Sister Act
Sistine Chapel
Spencer Tracy
Spengler's Decline Of The West
Stanley Kubrick
Stephen Colbert
Steve Martin
Stevie Wonder
St. Louis Blues
Tagore
Tales Of The City
Tammy Wynette
Terry Mcmillan
Thackeray
The Great Beauty
The Great Santini
The Leopard
The Pointer Sisters
The Singing Detective
The Unanswered Question
The Waste Land
Thomas Jefferson
Thoreau
Timothy Leary
Tina Turner
Todd Haynes
Tom Hanks
Tommy Lee Jones
To Seek A Newer World
Tristesse
True West
Truman Capote
Truth & Beauty
T. S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot
Tyrone Power
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Unconditionally
Virgil
Visconti
Vivien Leigh
Waiting To Exhale
Wally Shawn
Walter Cronkite
War Of The Worlds
W.C. Handy
What's Love Got To Do With It
Whitney Houston
Whoopi Goldberg
Wide Sargasso Sea
Willa Cather
William Buckley
William Faulkner
William Shatner
Women's Rights
Woody Allen
Writers & Writing
W.S. Gilbert
Wynton Marsalis
Yogi Berra
You Make Me Feel
Yul Brenner
RSS Feed

@2016 ANDREW HILL  |  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  |  www.andrewhillbooks.com  |  CONTACT  |  PURCHASE BOOKS 

How

Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    If you’re reading this website, think of me as a troubadour standing on the street corner, strumming a guitar and singing a few songs.  Not everyone who comes this way is able to make contribution.  But if you’re one of the passers-by who can, then feel free to drop a little spare change in my hat by clicking either the Donate or the Become a Patron button below.  Thank you!
    Become a Patron!
    SHOPPING
    SUBSCRIBE
    SUBSCRIBE
    To be notified of new posts to this blog

    Archives

    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013


    OTHER GREAT WEB SITES & BLOGS I ENJOY:
    Rhys Tranter
    Pam Perkins
    Ann Cavitt Fisher
    Brain Pickings - Maria Popova

    Categories

    All
    Andre Rieu
    Andrew Stanton
    Ang Lee
    Anne Hathaway
    Anne Rice
    Annie Leibovitz
    Ann Patchett
    A&P
    A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man
    Archibald MacLeish
    Aretha Franklin
    Armistead Maupin
    Art
    Arthur Miller
    Art Tatum
    Arturo Sandoval
    Auguste Rodin
    Avery Brooks
    Basquiat
    Ben Kingsley
    Betty White
    Bibi Andersson
    Bill Murray
    Billy Taylor
    Blanche Dubois
    Blind Willie
    Blue Danube
    Bobby Seale
    Bonjour
    Breakfast At Tiffany's
    Bruce Springsteen
    Buried Child
    Burt Lancaster
    Calista Flockhart
    Candice Bergen
    Carmen
    Carnal Knowledge
    Carol Burnett
    Carrie
    Cate Blanchett
    Catherine Deneuve
    Celia Cruz
    Charles Ives
    Charles McGrath
    Charles Schultz
    Charleton Heston
    Charlie Rose
    Charlotte Bronte
    Cherry Jones
    Chicago
    Civil Rights
    Clark Terry
    Coco Chanel
    Coffee Shop Prank
    Cointelpro
    Commentary
    Crossroads
    Current Events
    Daniel Ellsberg
    Dashiell Hammett
    Dave Brubeck
    David Letterman
    Death In Venice
    Death Penalty
    Deborah Treisman
    Deepak Chopra
    Dennis Haysbert
    Dennis Quaid
    Derek Jacobi
    Devil Wears Prada
    D.H. Lawrence
    Diana Krall
    Dick Cavett
    Dizzy Gillespie
    Donald Trump Tape
    Donny Hathaway
    Dostoevsky
    Downton Abbey
    Downton Sixbey
    Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
    Dumbledore
    Dune
    Dymaxion Car
    Earl Lloyd
    Edward Fox
    Edward Snowden
    Eileen Atkins
    Elie Wiesel
    Eliot Preludes
    Emily's Monologue From Our Town
    Emma Stone
    Esperanza Spalding
    Ethel Waters
    Eugene Ionesco
    Eugene O'Neill
    Famous Birthdays
    Far From Heaven
    Fifty Shades Of Grey
    Film Reviews
    Firing Line
    First Kiss
    Frank Herbert
    Franz Liszt
    Fred Astaire
    George Bernard Shaw
    George Foreman
    George Gershwin
    Georges Bizet
    Georges Braques
    George S. Kaufman
    Georges Seurat
    Ghost
    Gilda Radner
    Gloria Steinem
    Gone With The Wind
    Gunfight At Ok Corral
    Hamlet
    Happy Birthday Mr. President
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Harrison Ford
    Harry Chapin
    H. G. Wells
    Historical Figures & Events
    Horowitz
    Howard Rollins
    Ideas Worth Thinking About
    If You Leave Me Now
    Imagine
    In Cold Blood
    Ingmar Bergman
    Innocence Project
    Interview With A Vampire
    Jack Nicholson
    Jack Paar
    James Joyce
    Jane Eyre
    Jazz Messengers
    Jean Rhys
    Jean Seberg
    Jelly Roll Morton
    Jfk
    Jimmy Fallon
    Joe Louis
    Johann Strauss
    John Barrymore
    John Brown
    John Coltrane
    John Le Carre
    John Lennon
    John Malkovich
    Johnny Carson
    John Updike
    Joseph Campbell
    Joseph Conrad
    Jr.
    Judith Jamison
    Julian Fellowes
    Julianne Moore
    Julian Schnabel
    Julie Harris
    Katherine Hepburn
    Kathleen Battle
    Katy Perry
    Keith Jarrett
    Kierkegaard
    Krishnamurti
    Kublai Khan
    Kurt Vonnegut
    Lady Chatterley
    La Negra Tiene Tumbao
    Laura Esquivel
    Leap Of Faith
    Lee Strasberg
    Leonard Bernstein
    Leonardo Dicaprio
    Letter From A Birmingham Jail
    Like Water For Chocolate
    Lorne Michaels
    Louis Auchincloss
    Madame Bovary
    Mahalia Jackson
    Malcom X
    Maria Callas
    Marilyn Monroe
    Marissa Berenson
    Martin Luther King
    Martin Scorcese
    Mary Wells
    Medea
    Melba Moore
    Michael Crichton
    Michael Gambon
    Michael Jackson
    Michelangelo
    Mike Nichols
    Modernism
    Moms Mabley
    Montgomery Clift
    Moss Hart
    Muhammad Ali
    Murphy Brown
    Muses & Music
    Music
    My Dinner With Andre
    Nathaniel West
    Nat King Cole
    Nelson Mandela
    New Yorker Fiction Podcast
    Nietzsche
    Night At The Opera
    Night In Tunisia
    Orson Welles
    Oscar Wilde
    Oscar Wilde Released
    Otto Preminger
    Our Town
    Pappano
    Pascal Ferran
    Pat Conroy
    Paul Desmond
    Paul Simon
    Peanuts
    Penelope Ann Miller
    Penny Marshall
    Peter Jackson
    Pete Seeger
    Picasso
    Pier Paolo Pasolini
    Playing With Dynamite
    Pope John Xxiii
    Presidential Politics
    Prufrock
    P-word
    Race
    Rachel Mcadams
    Rape Culture
    Ray Charles
    Rex Harrison
    Rfk
    Rhinoceros
    Richard Dreyfus
    Rimbaud
    Robert Johnson
    Robert Kennedy
    Robert Louis Stevenson
    Roger Angell
    Rumble In The Jungle
    Ryan O'Neal
    Sacco & Vanzetti
    Saint Joan
    Sally Hemings
    Sam Shepard
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    Sartre
    Saturday Night Live
    Scarlett O'Hara
    Scopes Monkey Trial
    Sense And Sensibility
    Serena Williams
    Sexual Assault
    Sherlock Holmes
    Shirley Jackson
    Sissy Spacek
    Sister Act
    Sistine Chapel
    Spencer Tracy
    Spengler's Decline Of The West
    Stanley Kubrick
    Stephen Colbert
    Steve Martin
    Stevie Wonder
    St. Louis Blues
    Tagore
    Tales Of The City
    Tammy Wynette
    Terry Mcmillan
    Thackeray
    The Great Beauty
    The Great Santini
    The Leopard
    The Pointer Sisters
    The Singing Detective
    The Unanswered Question
    The Waste Land
    Thomas Jefferson
    Thoreau
    Timothy Leary
    Tina Turner
    Todd Haynes
    Tom Hanks
    Tommy Lee Jones
    To Seek A Newer World
    Tristesse
    True West
    Truman Capote
    Truth & Beauty
    T. S. Eliot
    T.S. Eliot
    Tyrone Power
    Uncle Tom's Cabin
    Unconditionally
    Virgil
    Visconti
    Vivien Leigh
    Waiting To Exhale
    Wally Shawn
    Walter Cronkite
    War Of The Worlds
    W.C. Handy
    What's Love Got To Do With It
    Whitney Houston
    Whoopi Goldberg
    Wide Sargasso Sea
    Willa Cather
    William Buckley
    William Faulkner
    William Shatner
    Women's Rights
    Woody Allen
    Writers & Writing
    W.S. Gilbert
    Wynton Marsalis
    Yogi Berra
    You Make Me Feel
    Yul Brenner

    RSS Feed

@2016 ANDREW HILL  |  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  |  www.andrewhillbooks.com  |  CONTACT  |  PURCHASE BOOKS 
  • Blog
  • NIGHT OF THE GOLDEN GHETTO
  • SLURRED
  • THE SHAPE-UP
  • My Bio
  • Contact
  • Acknowledgements
✕