Read Online Spies of Mississippi by Rick Bowers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rick Bowers
Ads: Link
enrollment in the newspapers. The elder Merediths wanted nothing to do with the controversy, insisting that James rarely visited them and never discussed his role at Ole Miss.
Still, the agent couldn’t resist reporting his personal conclusion: “It is my opinion that both mama and papa Meredith are not opposed to what their now-famous son had done and is doing. To the contrary they are proud of what James Meredith has done by entering the University of Mississippi and bringing about riots, strife, turmoil, and even death.”
CHAPTER 12
IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT
The time:
Just after midnight
The date:
June 12, 1963
The place:
A quiet, moonlit, suburban street on the outskirts of Jackson
The threat:
A lone gunman crouching behind a clump of honeysuckle vines
The target:
NAACP state field secretary Medgar Evers
The gunman lifts the thirty-ought-six, high-powered Enfield hunting rifle to his shoulder and places a squinting eye to its six-power telescopic sight. Evers pulls his blue 1962 Oldsmobile into the driveway of the ranch-style house at 2332 Guyness Street. He opens the car door and steps out. He holds a stack of T-shirts emblazed with the slogan “Jim Crow Must Go.” The events of the next hour will change history.
On that fateful night, Evers was returning home from an evening of NAACP functions. He had updated his colleagues on the protest demonstrations shaking the state’s capital and had watched President Kennedy make a televised address, announcing plans to push new civil rights legislation in Congress and urging citizens to embrace tolerance and understanding over prejudice and hatred.
For his part, Evers had been prodding his NAACP colleagues to move beyond their courtroom arguments and economic boycotts to embrace the new, direct-action protests employed by student activists. His embrace of those tactics had led to a series of student marches and sit-ins in Jackson that spring, which had spurred more than 700 arrests and had generated intense media coverage. Once dubbed a “quiet integrationist” by the New York Times, Evers was now being called a dangerous radical by the segregationist press at home. His high profile was also prompting hate mail, death threats, and attempts on his life. In a two-week period in late May and early June 1963, a Molotov cocktail had been thrown into his carport and a speeding car had nearly run him down outside his office in Jackson.
Despite the dangers, Evers pressed forward. The principle of doing the right thing in the face of hardship had been impressed upon him by his parents during his childhood in the mill town of Decatur, Mississippi, in the 1920s and 1930s. The hardships of life in a small, segregated town had included the day-to-day indignities of second-class citizenship and the hoots and howls of gangs of white hooligans, who roamed the streets on weekends and tossed firecrackers at black children. Evers dropped out of school in the 11th grade to join the army and fight in World War II. On the battlefields of Europe he waged war on the Nazis—the ultimate white supremacists—and learned that the defense of freedom carried the risk of death. Off the battlefields in Europe, he dated a white woman and discovered that racial segregation was not a universal reality. After returning home to Decatur, he tried to register to vote, only to be roughed up by a white mob. He vowed to make a difference.
Evers finished high school and earned a degree in business administration at Alcorn A & M College. Setting out to prove that an African American could succeed in the Deep South, Evers took a job selling insurance for the black-owned Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company. Realizing the futility of pedaling life-insurance policies to poor black dirt farmers who could barely afford food and shelter for their families, he put away the insurance policies and began handing out application forms for the NAACP. In the early 1950s, he started writing reports for the
Still, the agent couldn’t resist reporting his personal conclusion: “It is my opinion that both mama and papa Meredith are not opposed to what their now-famous son had done and is doing. To the contrary they are proud of what James Meredith has done by entering the University of Mississippi and bringing about riots, strife, turmoil, and even death.”
CHAPTER 12
IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT
The time:
Just after midnight
The date:
June 12, 1963
The place:
A quiet, moonlit, suburban street on the outskirts of Jackson
The threat:
A lone gunman crouching behind a clump of honeysuckle vines
The target:
NAACP state field secretary Medgar Evers
The gunman lifts the thirty-ought-six, high-powered Enfield hunting rifle to his shoulder and places a squinting eye to its six-power telescopic sight. Evers pulls his blue 1962 Oldsmobile into the driveway of the ranch-style house at 2332 Guyness Street. He opens the car door and steps out. He holds a stack of T-shirts emblazed with the slogan “Jim Crow Must Go.” The events of the next hour will change history.
On that fateful night, Evers was returning home from an evening of NAACP functions. He had updated his colleagues on the protest demonstrations shaking the state’s capital and had watched President Kennedy make a televised address, announcing plans to push new civil rights legislation in Congress and urging citizens to embrace tolerance and understanding over prejudice and hatred.
For his part, Evers had been prodding his NAACP colleagues to move beyond their courtroom arguments and economic boycotts to embrace the new, direct-action protests employed by student activists. His embrace of those tactics had led to a series of student marches and sit-ins in Jackson that spring, which had spurred more than 700 arrests and had generated intense media coverage. Once dubbed a “quiet integrationist” by the New York Times, Evers was now being called a dangerous radical by the segregationist press at home. His high profile was also prompting hate mail, death threats, and attempts on his life. In a two-week period in late May and early June 1963, a Molotov cocktail had been thrown into his carport and a speeding car had nearly run him down outside his office in Jackson.
Despite the dangers, Evers pressed forward. The principle of doing the right thing in the face of hardship had been impressed upon him by his parents during his childhood in the mill town of Decatur, Mississippi, in the 1920s and 1930s. The hardships of life in a small, segregated town had included the day-to-day indignities of second-class citizenship and the hoots and howls of gangs of white hooligans, who roamed the streets on weekends and tossed firecrackers at black children. Evers dropped out of school in the 11th grade to join the army and fight in World War II. On the battlefields of Europe he waged war on the Nazis—the ultimate white supremacists—and learned that the defense of freedom carried the risk of death. Off the battlefields in Europe, he dated a white woman and discovered that racial segregation was not a universal reality. After returning home to Decatur, he tried to register to vote, only to be roughed up by a white mob. He vowed to make a difference.
Evers finished high school and earned a degree in business administration at Alcorn A & M College. Setting out to prove that an African American could succeed in the Deep South, Evers took a job selling insurance for the black-owned Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company. Realizing the futility of pedaling life-insurance policies to poor black dirt farmers who could barely afford food and shelter for their families, he put away the insurance policies and began handing out application forms for the NAACP. In the early 1950s, he started writing reports for the
Similar Books
