Medgar Evers was the NAACP field secretary in Mississippi assassinated outside his Jackson home in 1963.
Evers worked to challenge segregation, expand Black voter registration, and investigate racially motivated violence. His position made him one of Mississippi’s most visible civil rights activists, and he faced frequent threats because of his organizing.
On June 12, 1963, Evers was shot in the back as he entered his home. He died shortly afterward. His murder shocked the nation and intensified demands for federal civil rights legislation.
Byron De La Beckwith was arrested and tried twice, but both trials ended in hung juries. A later prosecution in 1994 convicted him of murder. Evers is sometimes confused with Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated nearly five years later in Memphis.