Medgar Evers

CTL-E-5392 · Person · activist · 1925–1963

VERIFIED evidence grade of this record

Medgar Wiley Evers was born in Decatur, Mississippi, in 1925, served in the United States Army in Europe during the Second World War, and came home to a state that denied Black veterans the vote, the classroom, and basic safety. He graduated from Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1950, sold insurance across the Delta — work that doubled as quiet organizing — and helped build local NAACP chapters with his brother Charles. In 1954 he applied to the University of Mississippi law school as a test of Brown v. Board of Education and was rejected; that same year he became the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. From Jackson he traveled the state registering voters, investigating racial violence including the murder of Emmett Till, supporting boycotts, and reporting conditions that national America preferred not to see, all under constant threat. On June 12, 1963, hours after President Kennedy addressed the nation on civil rights, Evers was ambushed and shot in his own driveway, dying aged thirty-seven. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington and awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for 1963. His killer was convicted only in 1994, after two hung juries in the 1960s. His flowers honor the field secretary who did the unglamorous, dangerous paperwork of freedom — membership cards, affidavits, and miles of Mississippi road.

The record

• Also known as: Medgar Wiley Evers

Notes

Statistics: Born July 2, 1925, Decatur, Mississippi; Alcorn graduate 1950 (Britannica); NAACP's first Mississippi field secretary from 1954; assassinated June 12, 1963, aged 37, Jackson; buried at Arlington with full military honors; NAACP Spingarn Medal 1963 (Britannica, accessed 2026-10-15). · Curator's Judgment: DRAFT — Evers gets his flowers as the movement's field man in its most dangerous state: he organized where organizing could get you killed, and it did. CTL names that cost plainly and gratefully. · Photo slot: CLEARED — Wikimedia Commons File:Medgar Evers press photo.jpg, Unknown; distributed by AP, Public domain, verified via Commons API 2026-10-15; direct URL https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Medgar_Evers_press_photo.jpg; master in packet photos/medgar-evers.jpg.

Sources

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Medgar Evers" — https://www.britannica.com/biography/Medgar-Evers?source=NEWS1210 (primary source)
• FactMonster, "Medgar Evers" — https://www.factmonster.com/biographies/society-culture/medgar-evers

Record CTL-E-5392 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · evidence grade: VERIFIED · 2 sources (1 primary) · CTL research: PPL-001.
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