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.
Though the mills of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.
First 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.
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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!
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OTHER GREAT WEB SITES & BLOGS I ENJOY:
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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
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Bibi Andersson
Bill Murray
Billy Taylor
Blanche Dubois
Blind Willie
Blue Danube
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Bonjour
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Bruce Springsteen
Buried Child
Burt Lancaster
Calista Flockhart
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Carmen
Carnal Knowledge
Carol Burnett
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Catherine Deneuve
Celia Cruz
Charles Ives
Charles McGrath
Charles Schultz
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Charlie Rose
Charlotte Bronte
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Coffee Shop Prank
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Current Events
Daniel Ellsberg
Dashiell Hammett
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Dennis Haysbert
Dennis Quaid
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Devil Wears Prada
D.H. Lawrence
Diana Krall
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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
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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
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