Assassination of Medgar Evers (Jackson, MS)
Returning home after a late meeting following President Kennedy’s national address on civil rights, NAACP state field director Medgar Evers is murdered in his driveway in the early hours of June 12, shot at close range with a high-powered rifle by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith, of Greenwood. His two children and wife Myrlie witness his death. A key figure in the Jackson Movement and in the desegregation of the University of Mississippi, Evers had worked tirelessly to sustain the Movement since 1952, the year he and his wife began organizing NAACP chapters in the Mississippi Delta.
(Learn more in the introductory lesson for middle and high school students called Meet Medgar Evers.)