Synopses & Reviews
Civil rights activist Medgar Wiley Evers was well aware of the dangers he would face when he challenged the status quo in Mississippi in the 1950s and '60s, a place and time known for the brutal murders of Emmett Till, Reverend George Lee, Lamar Smith, and others. Nonetheless, Evers consistently investigated the rapes, murders, beatings, and lynching's of black Mississippians and reported the horrid incidents to a national audience, all the while organizing economic boycotts, sit-ins, and street protests in Jackson as the NAACP's first full-time Mississippi field secretary. He organized and participated in voting drives and nonviolent direct-action protests, joined lawsuits to overturn state-supported school segregation, and devoted himself to a career that cost him his life. This biography of a lesser-known but seminal civil rights leader draws on personal interviews from Myrlie Evers-Williams (Evers's widow), his two remaining siblings, friends, grade-school-to-college schoolmates, and fellow activists to elucidate Evers as an individual, leader, husband, brother, and father. Extensive archival work in the Evers Papers, the NAACP Papers, oral history collections, FBI files, Citizen Council collections, and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Papers, to list a few, provides a detailed account of Evers's NAACP work and a clearer understanding of the racist environment that ultimately led to his murder. Selfless dedication marked the life of Medgar Evers, and while this remains his story, it is also a testament to the important role that grassroots activism played in exacting social change during some of America's most turbulent and violent times.
Review
"Michael Williams's book provides the first scholarly full-length treatment of this iconic Mississippi civil rights leader, and it is a fitting tribute, providing the depth, detail, and texture hitherto missing from Evers's life story."
-John A. Kirk, chair and Donaghey Professor of History, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Review
"Americans remember Medgar Evers--if they remember him at all--as the black leader gunned down the night President Kennedy made his famous civil rights speech. But Evers was much more than that, as Michael Williams makes clear in this marvelous biography. Long before the TV cameras and newsmen descended on the Magnolia State, Evers was risking his life on the back roads of Mississippi, organizing local people to take charge of their destiny. A hero and a martyr, Evers was also a complicated man torn between his activist impulses and the conservative mandates of his NAACP bosses in New York. Williams captures Medgar Evers in all his complexity in this well written, solidly researched, important book." --John Dittmer, author ofLocal People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
Review
"An important and readable study of this seminal leader and the history of the civil rights movement." --Publishers Weekly
Review
"Williams's work tops what have been too few head-on examinations of the substance and significance of this martyr's sacrifice, a man who demonstrated the truth he liked to repeat: 'You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.' General readers and scholars will benefit from reading this work..." --Library Journal, Nov 2011
Review
"Masterfuland#133; Williams's great achievement here is in recognizing that Evers was more than just a symbol of resistance. With Mississippi Martyr, he has written the seminal work on the life of Medgar Wiley Evers." --Brent Riffel in Arkansas Review, 2012
Review
and#147;The first substantial scholarly biography of Medgar Eversand#133;. Will be the standard reference for some time to come.and#8221; --Journal of Southern History
Review
"Excellent . . . highly recommended." --Choice
Review
"Tops what have been too few head-on examinations of the substance and significance of this martyr's sacrifice." --Library Journal
Review
"A well-written and informative installment in a prolific civil rights scholarship. . . . an accessible volume for a wide range of historians." --Hayden McDaniel, H-Net
Review
"In this well-grounded inquiry into Mississippi's heart of darkness, Williams offers an essential reading of the short life and tragic times of Medgar Evers, the modest, heroic freedom fighter who, perhaps more than any other, helped transform the nation's most fiercely racist state." --Neil McMillen
Review
andldquo;Essential for readers interested in and for collections focusing on the civil rights movement.andrdquo;
andmdash;Library Journal
Review
andldquo;A stunningly powerful book that takes an honest and exhaustive look at one of the seminal figures from the stateandrsquo;s civil rights history. andhellip; To say that perhaps no American scholar could write seriously about the life of Aaron Henry with more credibility than Minion K.C. Morrison is a great understatement.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Clarion-Ledger
Synopsis
When Aaron Henry returned home to Mississippi from World War II service in 1946, he was part of wave of black servicemen who challenged the racial status quo. He became a pharmacist through the GI Bill, and as a prominent citizen, he organized a hometown chapter of the NAACP and relatively quickly became leader of the state chapter.
From that launching pad he joined and helped lead an ensemble of activists who fundamentally challenged the system of segregation and the almost total exclusion of African Americans from the political structure. These efforts were most clearly evident in his leadership of the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation, which, after an unsuccessful effort to unseat the lily-white Democratic delegation at the Democratic National Convention in 1964, won recognition from the national party in 1968.
The man who the New York Times described as being andldquo;at the forefront of every significant boycott, sit-in, protest march, rally, voter registration drive and court caseandrdquo; eventually became a rare example of a social-movement leader who successfully moved into political office. Aaron Henry of Mississippi covers the life of this remarkable leader, from his humble beginnings in a sharecropping family to his election to the Mississippi house of representatives in 1979, all the while maintaining the social-change ideology that prompted him to improve his native state, and thereby the nation.
About the Author
Minion K. C. Morrison is professor of political science and public administration at Mississippi State University. He is the author of five books.