Medgar Evers

<div>Civil rights activist Medgar Wiley Evers was well aware of the dangers he would face when he challenged the status quo in Mississippi in the 1950s and '60s a place and time known for the brutal murders of Emmett Till Reverend George Lee Lamar Smith and others. Nonetheless Evers consistently investigated the rapes murders beatings and lynching's of black Mississippians and reported the horrid incidents to a national audience all the while organizing economic boycotts sit-ins and street protests in Jackson as the NAACP's first full-time Mississippi field secretary. He organized and participated in voting drives and nonviolent direct-action protests joined lawsuits to overturn state-supported school segregation and devoted himself to a career that cost him his life. This biography of a lesser-known but seminal civil rights leader draws on personal interviews from Myrlie Evers-Williams (Evers's widow) his two remaining siblings friends grade-school-to-college schoolmates and fellow activists to elucidate Evers as an individual leader husband brother and father. Extensive archival work in the Evers Papers the NAACP Papers oral history collections FBI files Citizen Council collections and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Papers to list a few provides a detailed account of Evers's NAACP work and a clearer understanding of the racist environment that ultimately led to his murder. Selfless dedication marked the life of Medgar Evers and while this remains his story it is also a testament to the important role that grassroots activism played in exacting social change during some of America's most turbulent and violent times.</div>