Book Review of Medgar & Myrlie: The Love Story That Awakened America
Medgar and Myrlie married a year after they met, on Christmas Eve 1951, and the author stresses that the book is a love story. I was shocked to read that Medgar Evers was not listed among the Civil Rights Leaders of the Past and Present in publications and catalogs, overshadowed by so many momentous events.
Medgar Evers, with Myrlie as his partner in activism and in life, were doing civil rights work in the single most hostile and dangerous environment in America, Mississippi, says the author. Again, history shows how white supremacy strived to keep Blacks dumb, docile and out of history books and school teachings.
As Medgar and his brother Charles gathered a group of fellow Black veterans became the first Blacks from Decatur to register and vote in the July 1946 Democratic primary, but whites declared that they would be justified in going to any extreme to keep Blacks from voting, including murder. This was inciting violence against blacks and no jury would indict nor convict a white person who “committed violence on Negroes” - Theodore G. Bilbo (a career politician in the US Senate). Lynchings often targeted blacks who expressed a desire to vote. When six Black veterans including Medgar, and Charles arrived at the courthouse to vote, they were greeted by about twenty white men, armed with shotguns and pistols, blocking the door screaming for them to go home. Medgar and Charles were armed too, declaring that having fought for their country, they had a right to register and intended to do so. The court clerk then registered all six men to vote. This was the beginning of the fight for Medgar.
Myrlie was intrigued by his intelligence, poise, and directness and smitten by him at 17, it was destiny. Medgar challenged her and engaged her on political issues, world events, and civil rights in Mississippi. Medgar looked at Myrlie as someone he could teach, shape, and have as a partner in his life’s work. Musing that revolution was the way Blacks in America could free themselves from white supremacy and oppression. Megar was not a believer of nonviolence. Myrlie had never heard a negro challenge segregation, but Medgar, determined, challenged the caste system.
Sending Blacks with minor offenses or planted crimes, to prison for free labor, returned slavery to the state, and bringing Reconstruction particularly Mississippi to an end. I was compassionate to Myrlie’s feelings of paralyzing confinement for the families safety and the resentment that emerged. His choosing the path of civil rights as his mistress was profound despite his love for his wife and children. Myrlie became more supportive of his work with the NAACP and less nagging.
Myrlie was a mother protecting her children when Medgar was determined to add their names to a petition to integrate the Jackson Public Schools. Medgar explained the importance of integration while not shielding them from the truth of slavery, white lies of Black inferiority, and to fully understand that racism and discrimination were evils that existed. As city jails were bursting with protestors and the stockading of activists in makeshift detention camps pleas to the Department of Justice for investigation and protection were not met. An appeal for the national office of the NAACP to pay for full-time security for Medgar and the Evers home but was told the national organization had “more important things to do with its money.” - Roy Wilkins.
Myrlie’s shock and rage over Medgar’s death was warranted and a confounding point in her story, her life and the fate of her family’s future being the first national civil rights widow. “Medgar’s blood stained every segregated part of Mississippi.” (Page 192). Myrlie and Medgar believed that any investigation, especially by the local police authorities would result in justice being served. The national NAACP did not approve of a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a Medgar Evers collaboration as Evers wanted to replicate the movement in Alabama and other places. It should not have been a shock to know that there was an onslaught of hateful letters from segregationist to the White House under President Kennedy’s administration to have Medgar interned in Arlington National Cemetery for his service in Europe and in Mississippi. The NAACP provided security guards to the Evers family after his death and denied when they needed it most.
President Kennedy had signed the civil rights bill that called for an end to segregation in public accommodations and school desegregation protecting the rights of Black Mississippians. Myrlie had to witness this change alone. This is history of the first high-profile assassination of a civil rights leader, making the investigation a high priority. With the trial of Medgar’s killer in 1964 underway, it was no surprise that the jury consisted of twelve white men, as Blacks were excluded by the defense, so was the “Mississippi Way” of the injustice system.
“The Negroes are getting too independent,” they say. “We must teach them a lesson.” What lesson? The lesson of subordination: “Kill the leaders and it will cow the Negro who dares to shoot a white man, even in self-defense.” —IDA B. WELLS-BARNETT
Several monuments, streets and venues have been erected and named in Medgar Wiley Evers honor. The airport in Jackson, Mississippi was renamed in 2004, a street, and a navy ship to name a few. This was an excellent read and documentation of history as well as a personal glimpse into the thoughts and mindset of the first civil rights widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams and the love of her family as she endured the loss of the love of her life before he could witness the fruits of his determination and goals of his push to free Mississippi of it's racial suppression in the 1960s. I will reference this book time and time again! Excellence...
Comments