Person · 1925–1963
Medgar Evers
Mississippi's first NAACP field secretary, assassinated in his own driveway for his organizing.
A martyr of the Mississippi freedom struggle.
A World War II veteran, Medgar Evers became the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, where he investigated lynchings, organized boycotts, and pushed to desegregate the state university. It made him one of the most hunted men in the South.
On June 12, 1963, he was shot in the back in his own driveway. His murder — and the decades it took to finally convict his killer — made him a martyr of the movement.