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Authors: Rick Bowers
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organization, chronicling the deplorable state of Negro schools and the prevalence of Klan violence. In 1954 he was named the organization’s first Mississippi field secretary. In that role, he logged thousands of miles driving the state’s two-lane highways and two-rut dirt roads as he investigated lynchings, voter intimidation, and police brutality.
Naturally, Evers had long been a subject of keen interest to the Commission. In the field secretary’s first years on the job, special operative T1 launched a basic background check on him, and agent Van Landingham tracked his movements. Van Landingham seriously underestimated the quiet and introspective activist. He filed a report that predicted Evers would fail to connect with grassroots activists because “he is a weak character and a coward” afraid to put himself “at forefront or in a position that would place him in danger of bodily harm.” Before long the opinionated investigator was compiling extensive, 6- to 12-page memos on Evers’s relentless activism as he built a dossier under the subject heading “Medgar Evers: Integration Agitator.” The file included Evers’s military records, college transcripts, car registration, and the birth certificates of his children.
Van Landingham also chronicled Evers’s attacks on the Commission. In a report on an NAACP meeting, he noted, “Evers spoke regarding the State Sovereignty Commission and mentioned my name as receiving reports from Negro informants all over the state.”
In fact, the Commission’s confidential informants had tracked the field secretary’s movements for years. And working in tandem with the Jackson City Police, they were closely monitoring his actions that spring of 1963, as picket lines and sit-ins disrupted the daily flow of events in the state’s capital.
In May 1963 Commission agents intercepted a letter that Evers wrote to supporters and placed it in his investigative file. “The NAACP is determined to put an end to all forms of radical segregation in Jackson,” Evers wrote. “To accomplish this we shall use all lawful means of protests—picketing, marches, mass mailings, litigation, and whatever other lawful means we deem necessary.”
At another point Evers directly challenged the white power structure by going over the heads of all state officials to appeal to ordinary citizens: “We believe that there are white Mississippians who want to go forward on the race question. Their religion tells them there is something wrong with the old system. Their sense of justice and fair play sends them the same message. But whether Jackson and the state choose to change or not, the years of change are upon us.”
Things never would be the same after June 12, 1963. Just after midnight, Evers stepped out of the car with the bundle of “Jim Crow Must Go” T-shirts and walked up his driveway with his door key in hand. His wife, Myrlie, was watching television in the bedroom with their three children nestled on the bed with her. As Medgar Evers walked toward the front door, the gunman in the shadows squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out, breaking the silence. The bullet ripped through Evers’s back below his right shoulder blade, through a window, and through a wall inside the house. As Evers crawled to his front porch with blood pouring from his body and his keys still in hand, Myrlie ran out, horrified. Their children had taken cover under the bed as their parents had taught them to do at the sound of gunshots. They ran out a few minutes later to see their father lying in a pool of blood. Myrlie rushed back inside and called the police. Her husband was rushed to the hospital but died 50 minutes later.
The next morning Jackson City Police scoured the crime scene. Detective Sergeant O. M. Luke found the thirty-ought-six rifle in a honeysuckle vine less than 400 feet from Evers’s driveway. Jackson Police Captain Ralph Hargrove photographed the scene and took the rifle back to
Naturally, Evers had long been a subject of keen interest to the Commission. In the field secretary’s first years on the job, special operative T1 launched a basic background check on him, and agent Van Landingham tracked his movements. Van Landingham seriously underestimated the quiet and introspective activist. He filed a report that predicted Evers would fail to connect with grassroots activists because “he is a weak character and a coward” afraid to put himself “at forefront or in a position that would place him in danger of bodily harm.” Before long the opinionated investigator was compiling extensive, 6- to 12-page memos on Evers’s relentless activism as he built a dossier under the subject heading “Medgar Evers: Integration Agitator.” The file included Evers’s military records, college transcripts, car registration, and the birth certificates of his children.
Van Landingham also chronicled Evers’s attacks on the Commission. In a report on an NAACP meeting, he noted, “Evers spoke regarding the State Sovereignty Commission and mentioned my name as receiving reports from Negro informants all over the state.”
In fact, the Commission’s confidential informants had tracked the field secretary’s movements for years. And working in tandem with the Jackson City Police, they were closely monitoring his actions that spring of 1963, as picket lines and sit-ins disrupted the daily flow of events in the state’s capital.
In May 1963 Commission agents intercepted a letter that Evers wrote to supporters and placed it in his investigative file. “The NAACP is determined to put an end to all forms of radical segregation in Jackson,” Evers wrote. “To accomplish this we shall use all lawful means of protests—picketing, marches, mass mailings, litigation, and whatever other lawful means we deem necessary.”
At another point Evers directly challenged the white power structure by going over the heads of all state officials to appeal to ordinary citizens: “We believe that there are white Mississippians who want to go forward on the race question. Their religion tells them there is something wrong with the old system. Their sense of justice and fair play sends them the same message. But whether Jackson and the state choose to change or not, the years of change are upon us.”
Things never would be the same after June 12, 1963. Just after midnight, Evers stepped out of the car with the bundle of “Jim Crow Must Go” T-shirts and walked up his driveway with his door key in hand. His wife, Myrlie, was watching television in the bedroom with their three children nestled on the bed with her. As Medgar Evers walked toward the front door, the gunman in the shadows squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out, breaking the silence. The bullet ripped through Evers’s back below his right shoulder blade, through a window, and through a wall inside the house. As Evers crawled to his front porch with blood pouring from his body and his keys still in hand, Myrlie ran out, horrified. Their children had taken cover under the bed as their parents had taught them to do at the sound of gunshots. They ran out a few minutes later to see their father lying in a pool of blood. Myrlie rushed back inside and called the police. Her husband was rushed to the hospital but died 50 minutes later.
The next morning Jackson City Police scoured the crime scene. Detective Sergeant O. M. Luke found the thirty-ought-six rifle in a honeysuckle vine less than 400 feet from Evers’s driveway. Jackson Police Captain Ralph Hargrove photographed the scene and took the rifle back to
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