A Shot That Ricocheted Through History

" A Shot That Ricocheted Through History"

Medgar Evers was a man who was not afraid to stand up for what he believed in. He believed that one-day blacks and whites would be able to associate with each other without racial interference. He would later die for what he believed and leave an example for all who was following in his path. The man believed to have shot him was tried three times and finally convicted in the third trial nearly thirty years after his death. Evers was seen as a martyr for all black to look up to.

As civil rights began to gain attention of the United States, blacks decided they needed to change their approach from court cases to a more nonviolent approach. On August 28, 1963, the movement reached its strongest points. They made a march at Washington D. C., and wanted to federal civil rights legislation to give them equal rights. This is where Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech. King believed that most whites were basically decent and when faced by love would allow injustice and brutality to continue. (Jordan) The nonviolent approach would prove to be a better approach for them in later times.

When blacks began charging their approach, they began preferring sit-ins. This all started at a public lunch counter at F. W. Woolsworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina and began to spread to all public land counties across the south. As sit-ins became more common, they moved to other public places such as parks, movie theatres, swimming pools, libraries, lobbies, and many other segregated facilities. After several months of sit-ins, they began to become desegregated. Blacks also began a strong movement to get public schools desegregated as well. They finally succeeded with Ole Miss, when they accepted James Meredith into the school. President Kennedy also tried to help blacks by approaching the problem with caution. He did this by encouraging company with government contracts to hire black Americans.

On July 2, 1925 in Decatur, Ms, a black man by the name of Medgar Wiley Evers was born. Until he joined the Army in 1943, he attended school in Decatur. He served Normandy and to Alcorn to pursue his college education in which he majored in business administration. While there, he participated in many school functions, and also met his future wife Myrtle Beasley. They married the next year on December 24, 1951. After finishing college with a BA he moved to Mound Bayou, and established the local chapter of the NAACP. He was an insurance salesman until the Supreme Court case of Brown vs. the Board of Education said that schools could no longer be segregated. When this decision did not stop him from trying to integrate the school, when in 1962 they helped James Meredith get enrolled there. Earlier in 1954, Evers was appointed to NAACP field secretary and moved to Jackson. Evers, despite of danger of being the leader of the NAACP, pursued to civil rights movement actively. Evers once said, "If I die, it will be in a good course. I've been fighting for America just as much as soldiers in Vietnam. I'm determined that we will be accepted human beings with dignity."

With being the leader of the NAACP, many white Americans did not like him, and when he helped James Meredith get into Ole Miss, he sparked a fire that would not go away until June 12, 1963, when he was murdered outside his home, and the murderer would not see justice until 1994, over thirty years after his death.

Beckwith was born on November 9, 1920, in Sacramento, California. His mother had mental problems and his father was an alcoholic. He was later orphaned and raised by a cousin in Greenwood. Beckwith did below average in school, and the only thing he really enjoyed was guns. He later graduated from Columbia Military Academy in Mississippi. He worked at a laundry mat until World War II broke out; he quickly enlisted in the marines and was sent off to battle in Tarawa. While fighting, he was shot and fell into the water. He returned to Greenwood where he failed to pass the officers training school qualifying exam in 1965. Beckwith married Mary Louise Williams, better known as Willie, a year before he left the service. They later had a son named Bryant (Pitock). Byron was just a man with troubled past, trying to find where he fit in.

Byron was a troubled man coming back from WWII and it was hard for him to fit back in with society. His nephew, Reed Massengill, once said, " For a guy coming back after WW II into impoverished Mississippi, there was very little in this world that he could feel superior to. Blacks were all the people he could look down on." People said that even in the racist society, Beckwith was considered an extremist. (Pitock) the racist issue with Beckwith turned personal when Medgar Evers Helped get James Meredith admitted into Ole Miss. (Silver) Beckwith