James Charles Evers was an American civil rights activist, businessman, radio personality, and politician. Evers was known for his role in the civil rights movement along with his younger brother Medgar Evers. After serving in World War II, Evers began his career as a disc jockey at WHOC in Philadelphia, Mississippi. In 1954, he was made the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) State Voter Registration chairman. After his brother's assassination in 1963, Evers took over his position as field director of the NAACP in Mississippi. In this role, he organized and led many demonstrations for the rights of African Americans.
Medgar Wiley Evers was an American civil rights activist and soldier who was the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. Evers, a United States Army veteran who served in World War II, was engaged in efforts to overturn racial segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans, including the enforcement of voting rights when he was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith.
Byron De La Beckwith Jr. was an American white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan who murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963 in Jackson, Mississippi.
Ghosts of Mississippi is a 1996 American biographical courtroom drama film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, and James Woods. The film is based on the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers.
Myrlie Louise Evers-Williams is an American civil rights activist and journalist who worked for over three decades to seek justice for the 1963 murder of her husband Medgar Evers, another civil rights activist. She also served as chairwoman of the NAACP, and has published several books on topics related to civil rights and her husband's legacy. On January 21, 2013, she delivered the invocation at the second inauguration of Barack Obama.
The Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) was a society in Mississippi founded by T. R. M. Howard in 1951 to promote a program of civil rights, self-help, and business ownership for African Americans. It pledged "to guide our people in their civic responsibilities regarding education, registration and voting, law enforcement, tax paying, the preservation of property, the value of saving and in all things which will make us stable, qualified conscientious citizens." Instead of starting from the "grass roots," however, the strategy was to "reach the masses through their chosen leaders" by harnessing the talents of blacks with a proven record in business, the professions, education, and the church.
George Washington Lee was an African-American civil rights leader, minister, and entrepreneur. He was a vice president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and head of the Belzoni, Mississippi, branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was assassinated in 1955 in retaliation for his efforts to register African Americans to vote. Since 1890 they had been effectively disenfranchised in Mississippi due to a new state constitution; other states across the South passed similar acts and constitutions, excluding millions of people from the political system and establishing one-party states.
Allen Cavett Thompson was an American politician in the state of Mississippi. Affiliated with the Democratic Party, he served in the Mississippi House of Representatives and as mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.
Jerry W. Mitchell is an American investigative reporter formerly with The Clarion-Ledger, a newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi. He convinced authorities to reopen many cold murder cases from the civil rights era, his investigations providing the basis for prosecutions, prompting one colleague to call him "the South's Simon Wiesenthal". In 2009, he received a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation.
William F. Gibson was an African-American dentist who served as chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1985 to 1995.
Raylawni Branch is a black Mississippi pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement, a professional nursing educator and US Air Force Reserve officer. She is best known for her leading role in the integration of the University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg) in 1965, which was peaceful as opposed to the violent riot triggered by white racism after the enrollment of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi (Oxford) in 1962.
"Sweet, Sweet Blues" is an episode of the NBC drama series In the Heat of the Night, starring Carroll O'Connor as Chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Detective Virgil Tibbs. In the Heat of the Night was based on the 1965 novel by John Ball, which was also the basis for the Academy Award winning film of the same name starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, directed by Norman Jewison.
Ruby Hurley was an American civil rights activist. She was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and administrator for the NAACP, and was known as the "queen of civil rights".
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.
Allen Johnson was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, an activist in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and he was also a minister of religion. Johnson is the grandfather of Georgetown law professor Vida Johnson.
Ralph Edwin King Jr., better known as Ed King, is a United Methodist minister, civil rights activist, and retired educator. He was a key figure in historic civil rights events taking place in Mississippi, including the Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in of 1963 and the Freedom Summer project in 1964. Rev. King held the position of chaplain and dean of students, 1963–1967, at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. At this critical juncture of the civil rights movement, historian John Dittmer described King as “the most visible white activist in the Mississippi movement.”
The Tougaloo Nine were a group of African-American students at Tougaloo College, who participated in civil disobedience by staging sit-ins of segregated public institutions in Mississippi in 1961.
Gloster B. Current was deputy executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Director of Branches and Field Administration of the NAACP during the Civil Rights Movement. It was a period of major expansion and activism for the NAACP. He also wrote a book, was an accomplished jazz musician, and was an ordained Methodist minister. His first wife was Leontine Turpeau, also a minister; they had three children but later divorced. At the time of his death, he lived in Hollis, Queens, with his wife second wife Rebecca Busch Current.
The Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, also known as Medgar Evers House, is a historic house museum at 2332 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive within the Medgar Evers Historic District in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. Built in 1956, it was the home of African American civil rights activist Medgar Evers (1925–1963) at the time of his assassination. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2017. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, signed March 12, 2019, by President Donald Trump, authorized it as a national monument; it was established on December 10, 2020, after the National Park Service (NPS) acquired it from Tougaloo College.
Medgar Evers Historic District is a U.S. historic district and residential neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi. The neighborhood contains the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, the former home of African American civil rights activist Medgar Evers (1925–1963). Poet and writer Margaret Abigail Alexander Walker (1915–1998) lived in the neighborhood, and has a street named after her. The district is roughly bound by Margaret Walker Alexander Street, W. of Missouri and E. of Miami Streets, and is 3 miles northwest from downtown Jackson. The district has been listed as one of the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) since September 18, 2013.
