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The Medgar Evers Murder (1963)

Medgar Evers, 37-year-old NAACP leader, was gunned down in the doorway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi on June 13, 1963, in a manner and fashion not unlike the one in which John F. Kennedy met his death a few months later in Dallas, Texas. In the Evers case, a white Mississippian from Greenwood, Byron de la Beckwith, was arrested 11 days after the shooting, and charged with the murder. Thirteen days after that, the Beckwith case ended in a mistrial when the jury could not agree on a verdict. (It was divided 7-5 for acquittal.)


[[image - black & white photograph of Freedom Riders]]
[[caption]] Freedom Riders sit in the "white only" section of the waiting-room of a bus depot in Montgomery, Ala. [[/caption]]

[[image - black & white photograph of state troopers acting against demonstrators]]
[[caption]] State troopers charge into a line of demonstrators grouped for the first Selma march which was banned by Governor George Wallace of Alabama.[[/caption]]

[[image - black & white photograph of Freedom Riders in the back of a police van accompanied by a police officer]]
[[caption]] Four Freedom Riders who attempted a sit-in at a diner on U.S. 40 just north of Baltimore in October, 1961, were jailed by county police. [[/caption]]

[[image - black & white photograph of Freedom Riders leaving jail]]
[[caption]] Five Freedom Riders jailed in Montgomery, Ala., were released on bail in May, 1961.[[/caption]]

[[image - black & white photograph of college students sitting at a lunch counter]]
[[caption]] Lunch counters like this one at Woolworth's were desegregated by means of the [[text cut off]]down tactic developed by young Negro college students. [[/caption]]

[[image - black & white photograph of picketers facing Klansmen]]
[[caption]] Negro pickets parading before Atlanta hotels and motels, were accosted by Klansmen with anti-Negro handbills. [[/caption]]

[[image - black & white photograph of a press conference in Montgomery]]
[[caption]] Members of a press conference held in Montgomery, Ala., during the Freedom Rides of May, 1961, included (from top left) James Farmer, the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, the Reverend Martin Luther King and John Lewis, who had been beaten on his arrival in Montgomery. [[/caption]]

[[image - black & white photograph of Freedom Riders being arrested]]
[[caption]] Negro Freedom Riders using a white waiting room in Jackson, Miss., were jailed on "breach of peace" charges.[[/caption]]

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