June 1963

NAACP Mississippi field secretary Medgar Evers was shot in the back by a high-powered rifle in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi, dying within the hour. White supremacist Byron De La Beckwith was twice tried and twice acquitted by all-white juries in 1964. He was not convicted until 1994.

Returning from a voter registration training in South Carolina, Fannie Lou Hamer and fellow SNCC workers were arrested in Winona, Mississippi. Hamer was beaten in her cell by two Black prisoners under orders from state highway patrolmen. She sustained permanent kidney damage, a blood clot behind one eye, and limped for years. No officers faced serious charges.

Returning from voter registration training, Fannie Lou Hamer was arrested in Winona, Mississippi and beaten by prisoners under orders from highway patrolmen. She sustained permanent kidney damage, a blood clot behind one eye, and limped for years. No officers faced serious charges.

President Kennedy delivered a nationally televised address calling civil rights a 'moral issue' and announcing he would send comprehensive civil rights legislation to Congress. The bill would ban discrimination in public accommodations and authorize the federal government to file school desegregation suits. Its Senate passage required overcoming Southern opposition.

The NAACP leader is murdered outside his Mississippi home.