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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JAMES E. JACKSON is the Editor of THE WORKER, the working people's newspaper which was first established in 1924.

A native of Richmond, Virginia, he has been an active participant in numerous struggles of labor and the Negro people in the South since the early '30's. His writings over the years have made significant contributions to the theory and practice of the struggle for freedom and democracy in the South.

He is the author of THE SOUTH'S NEW CHALLENGE; THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE U. S.; THE VIEW FROM HERE; PHILOSOPHY OF COMMUNISM; etc.

Published by
Publisher's New Press, 23 W. 26 st., N.Y. 10, N.Y.
July 1963
Printed in the U.S.A.

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I.

Wilkins Speaks, Masses March In Funeral Tribute to Evers

JACKSON, MISS. - Over 4,000 of his friends, neighbors and fighters in the cause, had crowded into every available space of the gymnasium-like hall of the Negro Masonic Temple Building on Lynch Street, by 10:15 A.M. for the funeral service for Medgar W. Evers, leader of the Missisrippi Negroes' freedom fight who was slain by an assassin's bullet on June 12th. The service had been scheduled for 11:30 A.M., last Saturday.
The steady rustle of thousands of paper fans which were beating vainly against the sweltering heat gave way to the sounds of music as a black-robed choir accompanied by four trumpeters and an electric organ filled the great hall and set the somber mood of the service with the "Requiem" by Fox. On the platform facing the silent and reverent audience of mourners - each one arrayed in his or her "Sunday best" - sat Roy Wilkins, the executive secretary of the NAACP; Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, Under-secretary of the United Nations; Congressmen Charles Diggs of Michigan; George Biddle, President of Tougaloo College; Clarence Mitchell, legislative secretary of the NAACP, and several Jackson clergymen.
Seated in the center of the first row in the audience was the widow of the martyred leader, Mrs. Myralie Evers with two of her three children - Darrell Kenyatta, 9, and Rena Denise, 8; Medgar's brother Charles Evers and other members of the family. 
To the left of the family group, near the front of the audience, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Rev. Abernathy, Rev. Lawrence and Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker were seated with a full delegation from the Leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Other delegations were present - from CORE, headed by its executive officer James Farmer; from the National Council of Churches; from the veteran's organization, AVC. Some fifty prominent personalities from throughout the country could be iden-