A Love Story At The Center Of The Civil Rights Movement
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Who were Medgar and Myrlie Evers and why are their stories important?
This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bianculli. How to Be a Civil Rights Widow is one chapter title in a book by Joy Reid, the former MSNBC Evening Show host. The widow is Merle Evers. Her husband was Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist who served as the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary and risked his life to push for voting rights, desegregation, and freedom. Reid's book is called Medgar and Merle and is now out in paperback. Medgar and Murley were both from Mississippi. Murley constantly worried about the safety of her husband and their children, with good reason. Their house was firebombed. Later, in June 1963, Medgar was assassinated just outside the door of their home. Murley had heard the gunshot and found her husband bleeding out.
His was the first in a series of high-profile assassinations in the 1960s. Next came President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Joy Reid describes her book, Medgar and Murley, as a love story between two black people in Mississippi, their love for their children, and the higher love it took for black Americans to love America and to fight for it, even in the state that butchered more black bodies via lynching than any other. The love story between Murley and Medgar Evers also is fraught with tension, with Murley objecting to how much he was away from home, leaving her wondering if he loved his work more than he loved his family. He often left her alone to deal with the constant phone calls, threatening the lives of her family.
After her husband's death, Murley became an activist, an in-demand public speaker, and executive director of the NAACP. She gave the invocation at President Obama's second inauguration. Joy Reid spoke with Terry Gross last year.
Joy Reid, welcome to Fresh Air. Oh, thank you, Terry.
It is so wonderful to be here.
It's a pleasure to have you here. You think, and rightfully so, I think, that Medgar Evers hasn't really gotten the recognition he deserves as an important figure in the civil rights movement. I think he's more famous for getting assassinated than for the work he actually did.
That's true. I think that's true. And I think part of that is because of the just momentous year in which he was murdered, 1963. So many things happened in 1963. the kind of overwhelmed knowledge of what happened, of what he did. You start with this landmark speech that President Kennedy gave hours before Medgar was assassinated in front of his home, a speech in which John F. Kennedy, the president of the United States, was echoing the language that Medgar Evers, a fellow World War II veteran, was using in order to push for civil rights and change in Mississippi. Then he is assassinated. The world paid profound attention to it for that moment. But then later that summer, you have the March on Washington event. The bombing in Birmingham that killed four little girls. And then at the end of that year, you have the assassination of the president of the United States. Those things alone overwhelmed the knowledge of Medgar Evers just in the moment.
And then you have two years later, Malcolm X being assassinated. And then five years after Medgar, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated. And then in between, you've got Freedom Summer. and the assassinations of Goodwin, Schwerner, and Cheney. So there's so many events that happened both in Mississippi and nationally that his legacy sort of became overwhelmed.
Give us an overview of the work that he did.
So you start with Emmett Till. At the time, most high-profile lynching that had taken place in America. This was a 14-year-old boy who had family in Mississippi, had roots in Mississippi, but lived in Chicago. He came down for the summer to be with his cousins. He's murdered for sassing a white woman.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who were Medgar and Myrlie Evers and why are their stories important?
0:24–6:25
2
What were Medgar Evers' key contributions to the Civil Rights Movement?
6:25–16:01
3
How did Medgar Evers' approach to activism differ from the NAACP and other groups?
16:01–19:45
4
What tensions existed between Medgar Evers and Northern civil rights activists?
19:45–23:25
5
How did Medgar Evers' experience as a World War II veteran influence his activism?
23:25–33:41
6
What early life experiences shaped Medgar Evers' views on racial violence?
33:41–44:11
7
How did Medgar and Myrlie first meet and what challenges did their relationship face?
44:11–49:08
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Fresh Air
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