Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr

4. A Bloodied and Battered Mississippi

4. A Bloodied and Battered Mississippi 1955 Somebody’s going to pay for this, . . . . And I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay here and fight until someone does the same thing to me. —Medgar Evers Oh, what sorrow, Pity, pain That tears and blood Should mix like rain In Mississippi! . . . —Langston Hughes We shall face each dawn and night, With faith and courage true; And as our goal of ’63 grows near, Strive to see our struggle through. —Quoted in Medgar Evers Annual Report THE YEAR 1955 PROVED a trying time for Medgar Evers and the state of Mississippi as witnessed by the particular murders of two prominent civil rights activists and one fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago, Illinois. Each murder profoundly affected Evers and deepened his commitment both to the state of Mississippi and to the overturning of its oppressive regime. 117 Williams2RevisedPages:Layout 1 9/7/11 9:52 AM Page 117 As a result of the extreme levels of violence engulfing Mississippi during the 1950s, a number of prominent civil rights activists such as Doctors T. R. M. Howard, Clinton C. Battle, and A. H. McCoy left the state and NAACP membership suffered. Medgar Evers continued to organize and to recruit support for social struggle.1 The events of 1955, however, took a psychological toll on Evers and challenged his belief that Mississippi could be redeemed. Three prominent murders in 1955 illuminated white Mississippians’ commitment to keeping their African American counterparts intimidated and under control. Each instance of violence brought Mississippi closer to the national spotlight and pulled African Americans further away from acceptance of the status quo. The violent events of the 1950s changed Mississippi significantly, and Evers was a fundamental part of its metamorphosis . Evers also changed during that span of time as the oppressive conditions of African Americans dramatically affected his outlook on whether voter registration drives or direct-action tactics were the proper method for obtaining civil rights.2 The oppressive conditions African Americans faced in Mississippi shifted into high gear during the 1950s, and every incident of violence strengthened Evers’s resolve to combat Mississippi terrorism. No act of violence assaulted the sensibilities of Medgar, Mississippi, progressive whites, and the nation as did the lynching of fourteen-year-old Emmett Louis Till, who had been visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi. But prior to Till, Evers contended with the violent deaths of two Mississippians he respected for their dedication to the civil rights struggle: the Reverend George Lee of Belzoni and Lamar Smith of Brookhaven. Both murders challenged Evers’s commitment to non-direct action as a viable tactic for African American progress in Mississippi and the United States as a whole. Reverend George W. Lee was an independent businessman, minister, and active member of the NAACP in Belzoni, Mississippi, an area designated the “Heart of the Delta.” Unlike most ministers during his time, Lee openly advocated voting rights for African Americans. He demanded that blacks stand against white aggression and unequal treatment, and this brand of liberation theology permeated his sermons. Lee believed that blacks had to fight for their rights on earth, in the here and now, and not be content to wait upon death to gain equality. He touted this message to the four Baptist congregations he rode circuit for: two in Jackson, one in Lexington, and one in Tchula, Mississippi.3 Reverend Lee owned a grocery store and printing shop. These made him less vulnerable to the economic pressures that whites inflicted upon the less economically stable.4 His independence served him well as he labored 118 Medgar Evers Williams2RevisedPages:Layout 1 9/7/11 9:52 AM Page 118 to open the voting polls to African Americans in Mississippi on an equal basis with whites. On a personal level, Lee had accomplished a remarkable amount in terms of gaining access to the political process. George Lee, Evers noted in his 1955 annual report, “was the only Negro who had qualified himself in both County and City elections, in a county where Negroes have not voted since Reconstruction and where Negroes outnumber whites at the rate of more than two to one.”5 Myrlie asserted, however, that Reverend Lee had tried for years to vote but could not because of the sheriff’s refusal to accept his poll tax payments. In 1953, Reverend Lee and “a small group of other Negroes” complained to federal...