Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument

Jackson, Mississippi

Site of the murder of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers.

On June 12, 1963, just hours after President Kennedy delivered a speech about civil rights, activist and NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers when he was shot in the back by Byron De La Beckwith.  Gunned down near his driveway, Evers collapsed after staggering 30 feet and died less than an hour later.  His killer nearly got away with murder after juries consisting solely of white men failed to reach verdicts twice in 1964.  Justice caught up with him 30 years later after new evidence emerged and he was finally convicted of Evers' murder.

In 1996, the Rob Reiner-directed Ghosts of Mississippi told the story of De La Beckwith's retrial, starring James Woods and Whoopi Goldberg.  Today, the Evers home is a historic landmark in Jackson with one of the home’s rooms serving as a museum.  Also in Jackson is the Civil Rights Museum which features numerous exhibits on slavery and the civil rights movement.

North of Jackson in Sumner is Tallahatchie County Courthouse where the Emmett Till murder trial took place.  Emmett was a 14-year-old teenager who was brutally murdered after whistling at a white woman.  His assailants were found “not guilty” by an all-white jury.  Across from the courthouse is the Emmitt Till Interpretive Center.

Northeast of Sumner in Oxford is the University of Mississippi.  Oxford drew national attention following the Ole Miss riot of 1962.  State officials, including the Governor, prevented James Meredith, an African American, from enrolling at the University, despite a federal court ruling he be admitted.  President John F. Kennedy eventually quelled the riot by mobilizing more than 30,000 troops, the most for a single disturbance in United States history.

Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, Jackson, Mississippi.