June 12, 1963: The Assassination of Medgar Evers

June 12, 1963: Medgar Evers, one of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement, is assassinated.

NOTE: This was the same day the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton film Cleopatra opened. I have a separate entry for that event.

Medgar Wiley Evers was born on July 2, 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi. He fought in the U.S. Army in the Battle of Normandy in June 1944, and was a part of the D-Day invasion. He played football and ran track, and was on the debating team, at the historically black school now known as Alcorn State University in Mississippi. After marrying classmate Myrlie Beasley and graduating, he went to work for a black-owned insurance company. He and Myrlie had 3 children: Son Darrell, then daughter Reena, then son James.

Medgar became President of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, leading its boycotts of segregated places. His brother Charles Evers also served in the RCNL. In 1954, Medgar was named field secretary for Mississippi by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He fought, without success, to get the 1955 murderers of 14-year-old Emmett Till convicted. And he led the efforts that eventually succeeded in getting James Meredith enrolled as the 1st black student at the University of Mississippi in 1962.

Evers became a target for white supremacists. On May 28, 1963, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the garage of his house in Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. On June 7, 10 days later, he was nearly run down by a car after her walked out of the NAACP office in Jackson.

On June 11, 4 days after that, President John F. Kennedy gave a nationally televised speech, announcing the introduction of the bill that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That same day, Kennedy's Attorney General, and brother, Robert F. Kennedy, sent his deputy, Nicholas Katzenbach, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to get Governor George Wallace out of the door of Foster Auditorium, which was both the main athletic building and the registration center for the University of Alabama, because Wallace was trying to stop the 1st black students from registering at the school. On threat of getting arrested on live national television, Wallace backed down. It was a good day for civil rights.

That night, Jackson met in Jackson with civil rights lawyers. As he drove home, it was after midnight, March 12. He got out of his car, carrying T-shirts printed by the NAACP, reading "Jim Crow Must Go." A bullet entered his back and went through his heart, knocking him down. Somehow, he got up, and walked 30 feet to his front door, before falling again. Myrlie found him, and her screams woke up the neighbors.

Medgar was taken to the nearest hospital. At first, he was denied entry, because it was an all-white hospital. Hospital officials were told who he was, and he was admitted, the 1st black person admitted to an all-white hospital in Mississippi. The delay wouldn't have mattered, as he never had a chance. He died 50 minutes after being admitted.

He was only 37 years old -- younger than Martin Luther King Jr., or Malcolm X, or either of the Kennedy brothers would be upon their assassinations. Myrlie had just turned 30, and was younger than any of those men's widows were at the time.

Dr. King led his funeral procession, and, as an honorably discharged American military veteran, he was entitled to have arranged for him, and received, burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

On June 21, Byron De La Beckwith, a Ku Klux Klan member, was arrested for the murder. In the segregated South, juries were made up of people on the voter rolls -- which meant that, at this point, all juries would be all-white. Twice, in February and April 1964, all-white juries deadlocked, and failed to reach a verdict.

This failure was critical: Unlike the Till case, where an acquittal was reached, there was not a verdict; therefore, De La Beckwith could possibly be tried again. It took until 1993 before De La Beckwith was taken back to court. On February 5, 1994, nearly 31 years after he murdered Medgar Evers, Byron De La Beckwith was convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. He died in 2001, at 80, having served nearly 7 years, and unrepentant.

Charles Evers was appointed field director in his brother's place. In 1969, he was elected Mayor of Fayette, Mississippi, and was re-elected in 1973 and 1977. Defeated for re-election in 1981, he regained the office in 1985, but was defeated again in 1989.

Somewhere along the line, he switched parties, endorsing Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and Donald Trump in 2016. He died in 2020 (not from COVID), at age 97.

Myrlie Evers remarried in 1976, to Walter Williams, a civil rights and union activist. He died in 1995. Shortly thereafter, she began serving as Chairperson of the NAACP, a post she held until 1998. In 2013, she gave the invocation at President Barack Obama's 2nd Inauguration. As of June 12, 2022, she is still alive.

In 2011, although Medgar had served in the Army, it was the U.S. Navy that chose to honor him, launching a cargo ship. the USNS Medgar Evers.

Two notable films have been made about the Evers assassination and its aftermath. In 1983, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story was broadcast on PBS, starring Howard Rollins as Medgar and Irene Cara as Myrlie. In 1996, Ghosts of Mississippi premiered, with James Pickens Jr. and Whoopi Goldberg. In the scenes featuring De La Beckwith's 1994 trial, their adult daughter Reena Evers was played by Yolanda King, in real life the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.

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June 12, 1963 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Yankee Stadium. Roger Maris singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning, making Marshall Bridges a winner in relief of Ralph Terry. Mickey Mantle was injured, and did not play. Yogi Berra only appeared as a pinch-hitter, unsuccessfully.

* The New York Mets lost to the Milwaukee Braves, 9-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Lew Burdette pitched a 3-hit shutout. Hank Aaron and Del Crandall hit home runs. Duke Snider, playing out the string with the Mets, went 0-for-3, although he did draw a walk.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 5-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-3 with a solo home run.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Jim O'Toole pitched a 3-hit shutout. Frank Robinson went 2-for-3 with an RBI. Rookie Pete Rose went 2-for-4. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 12-6 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs, but it wasn't enough.

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the opener, 3-1. The Los Angeles Angels won the nightcap, 5-0. Former Yankee Cy Young Award winner Bob Turley allowed only 1 hit, a 6th-inning single by Pete Ward.

* A doubleheader was split at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. As Harmon Killebrew went, so went the Minnesota Twins: In the 1st game, he went 0-for-4, and the Kansas City Athletics beat the Twins, 12-4; in the 2nd game, he went 1-for-3 with a home run, 2 walks and 2 RBIs, and the Twins won, 8-1.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (It had been known as Sportsman's Park from 1909 to 1953.) Stan Musial went 2-for-3 with an RBI.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Colt .45s, 9-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. (The Colts became the Houston Astros in 1965.)

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie McCovey hit 2 home runs, Willie Mays went 1-for-4, and Ernie Banks went 0-for-3.