Cold Open

It’s June 15th, 1963, in the city of Jackson, Mississippi.

John Doar, a 41-year-old lawyer, is one of the few white faces in a predominantly Black procession of five thousand mourners. They’re accompanying a hearse through the quiet streets carrying the casket of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in Jackson three days ago.

The marchers are all silent except for the occasional sob of grief. But as they near a predominantly white part of town, the number of police officers lining the route increases, and the somber procession comes to a sudden stop.

John pushes forward through the crowd until he reaches the front and sees why the mourners have halted.

The road is blocked by police officers. Dogs strain at their leashes and a fire truck idles behind the barricade, ready to turn its hose on the mourners.

As the procession edges closer to the police line, one of the officers swings his baton and catches a mourner on the head. This assault sparks the rest of the officers to jump in, and a Black man screams as he’s hit by the butt of a rifle and is dragged behind the police line.

Fearing for their safety, other mourners near the front try to get away from the police—but they’re pressed forward by the crowd behind, and there’s nowhere for them to go. Some of the mourners fling bottles and rocks at the police as the melee grows, but this only enrages the cops and makes them swing harder. John Doar realizes that the clash could lead to deaths and cause a race riot. Hoping that the officers won’t attack a white man like him, John steps between the police and the mourners, holding his hands up high. He pleads with the crowd to stop—yelling that Medgar Evers wouldn’t want it this way.

The crowd steps back and space begins to open up between the mourners and the police. John breathes a sigh of relief as the procession retreats. But the line of officers—and their dogs and batons—seems impenetrable; The mourners will have to find a different route to their final destination.

A few days after Medgar Evers’ funeral, FBI agents investigating his murder identified a prime suspect. But justice will only be served after three trials and thirty years have passed, when Byron De La Beckwith will finally be convicted for the brutal killing of Medgar Evers, on February 5th, 1994.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is February 5th, 1994: The Long-Awaited Conviction of Medgar Evers’ Killer.

Act One

It’s a summer evening in 1934, in Decatur Mississippi, twenty-nine years before the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

Medgar is only eight years old, strolling down the street with his older brother Charles. Medgar and his family live a few miles out of town, and to the young farm boy, Decatur seems like a bustling metropolis. But though Medgar is still inexperienced in many ways of the world, he knows enough that a Black child like him needs to be careful even this close to home.

Although the thirteenth amendment after the American Civil War ended slavery sixty-nine years ago, Blacks in the South remain second-class citizens. So-called Jim Crow laws have institutionalized racial segregation, meaning black people can’t use white restrooms or drinking fountains. They can’t visit white stores or restaurants. And they certainly can’t go into white neighborhoods after dark for fear of being lynched—something the white police force hardly even considers a crime. But right now it’s still light out, and Medgar and his brother have the run of downtown Decatur while their parents are off on errands.

As Medgar and Charles explore, they spot a crowd of people by the courthouse and wander over to investigate. The curious boys weave through the adults to the front and discover a man speaking through a bullhorn. Medgar recognizes the man from the newspaper. It’s Theodore Bilbo, the former governor of Mississippi who’s now campaigning to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. So, with nothing else to do, Medgar and Charles sit on the courthouse steps to listen—but they soon wish they hadn’t. When Theodore spots the two Black boys, he sees an opportunity to win over the predominantly white audience. He singles out the children and Medgar feels the hostile eyes of everyone in the crowd turn toward him. Theodore spits out racist slurs as he warns the crowd that if they don’t vote for him, one day these two Black boys sitting on the steps before them will be running the place. Medgar’s cheeks flush with embarrassment and shame, but those feelings are soon replaced by determination - a desire to fight back against racists like Theodore and change Mississippi for the better.

Eight years later, Medgar is further inspired to improve the lot of Black Americans by his experiences as a soldier. When World War Two breaks out, Medgar drops out of high school to join the army. He takes part in the D-Day landings as part of an all-Black battalion and is surprised to be greeted by the white people of France as a hero. He discovers that Europe does not have racial segregation laws, and he and his comrades enjoy freedoms there that they don’t have back in Southern states like Mississippi.

But Mississippi is still Medgar’s home—and he isn’t prepared to abandon it. So, after he’s demobilized from the army, Medgar enrolls at an all-Black college. He meets and marries Myrlie Beasley and gains a job as an insurance salesman. And as Medgar builds a happy home, he makes good on his promise to fight racism. He becomes the field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, and he drives thousands of miles all across Mississippi registering Black people to vote. He sets up new regional chapters of the NAACP. He organizes a boycott of gasoline stations that bar Blacks from using restrooms. And, in the coastal city of Biloxi, Medgar helps an effort to desegregate public beaches.

But Medgar’s increasingly prominent role in the civil rights movement makes him a target for vengeful white supremacists. Among them is a resident of nearby Greenwood, Mississippi: Byron De La Beckwith. As a member of the White Citizens Council, Beckwith is a staunch supporter of racial segregation. He hands out racist pamphlets in the streets and encourages other white people to support segregationist policies. When the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956 leads to new federal laws banning segregation on public transport, Beckwith leads a counter-protest and tries to block Black passengers from entering Greenwood's bus terminal. But Beckwith’s efforts have little effect and then on June 11th, 1963, his segregationist ideology suffers another blow.

On that day, President John F. Kennedy will deliver a nationally televised speech calling for Congress to pass new civil rights legislation. With Southern states coming under increased pressure to end segregation, Beckwith will decide he must take more radical action. On the same night as Kennedy’s speech, Beckwith will hide outside Medgar’s house with a rifle, waiting to commit a cold-blooded murder for which he will evade justice for the next thirty years.

Act Two

It’s the early hours of June 12th, 1963, at the home of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, six hours after President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech calling for greater racial equality.

30-year-old Myrlie Evers yawns as she watches television with her children. Her husband, Medgar, has been putting in such long hours for the NAACP that their children hardly ever get to see him. So tonight, Myrlie's told her two older boys that they can stay up late and greet their father when he comes home.

A little after midnight, Myrlie hears Medgar’s car pulling into the driveway. But before her children see their father, a single gunshot echoes through the quiet night. The boys instinctively drop to the floor just as their parents have taught them to do if they hear a gun being fired. Myrlie runs outside and finds Medgar lying face down in the driveway, his arm reaching toward the house with his keys in his hand. He’s been shot in the back, and blood is pooling beneath him.

Medgar is still alive when an ambulance rushes him to a nearby hospital, but it’s a white-only facility and his treatment is delayed when the emergency room staff initially refuse to admit him. They only give way when they’re told that the patient is a prominent civil rights campaigner, and allowing him to die at the door could lead to a race riot. But the doctors aren’t able to save Medgar. The bullet passed through his heart, and he dies less than an hour after reaching the hospital.

News of Medgar’s assassination travels quickly and far. In Washington DC an immediate FBI investigation has begun- and it’s not long before there’s a breakthrough. A few days after the murder, agents discover an Enfield rifle in the bushes across the street from Medgar’s home. On its own, the weapon is not much of a clue. This type of weapon was used by American soldiers in World War One, and there are millions of them in the country. But the scope of the rifle is a different matter. It’s a rare Japanese model, and it’s soon traced back to a potential owner: Byron De La Beckwith. Agents take Beckwith’s fingerprints and they match those found on the gun. On the basis of such strong evidence, Beckwith is arrested and charged with Medgar’s murder.

Seven months later, District Attorney Bill Waller enters a courtroom on the first day of Beckwith’s murder trial. Like most lawyers in Mississippi, Bill is white. So is the judge, and every member of the jury. Regardless Bill presents the facts of the case, certain that the evidence against Beckwith should be enough for a conviction. But the defense casts doubt over the fingerprint on the gun's scope, pointing out that the expert witness who matched it gained his qualification from a correspondence course. The defense attorney goes on to suggest that the gun may have been planted to frame Beckwith. He calls witnesses who testify they saw Beckwith at a gas station across town at the time of the murder. Bill knows he needs to sure up his case. So, when Beckwith takes the stand, Bill tries to draw him into making racist comments, but although Beckwith voices his support for segregation, he keeps his cool. And enough doubt is planted in the jury’s mind that they cannot come to a decision. The judge declares a mistrial.

Two months later, Bill returns to court to lead the prosecution of Beckwith a second time—but Bill realizes he is fighting an uphill battle when a key prosecution witness changes his story. In the first trial, a cab driver testified that Beckwith had asked him for directions to Medgar’s house, only a few days before the murder. Now, the cab driver is unsure whether it was Beckwith he spoke to. Later, Bill discovers that the cab driver was savagely beaten by the Ku Klux Klan for his testimony in the first trial - and that is likely why he changed his story.

Bill is unable to build a case convincing enough for the all-white jury to convict and they end up deadlocked again. The judge declares a second mistrial and Bill senses that he’ll likely never secure a conviction. He chooses not to pursue the case further. So, after ten months in jail, Byron De La Beckwith is set free.

On reaching his home in Greenwood, Mississippi, Beckwith’s neighbors will line the streets holding up “welcome home” banners and waving Confederate flags. A year later, Beckwith will join the Ku Klux Klan and give a speech at a rally boasting about killing a Black person. But Beckwith’s habit of gloating will come back to haunt him during his third and final trial for murder when justice will finally be done for Medgar Evers.

Act Three

It’s spring 1991, at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.; twenty-seven years after Byron De La Beckwith was twice trailed of Medgar Evers’ murder.

Myrlie Evers dabs tears from her eyes as a cemetery worker digs up the grass before Medgar’s tombstone. Almost three decades after Myrlie came to Arlington for her husband’s funeral, she’s now back to witness the exhumation of his body.

In the years that followed Medgar’s assassination, Myrlie wrote her husband’s biography and continued his work in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Recently, with a new generation of judges on the bench in Mississippi, she’s called for the state to re-open the case into her husband’s murder. And today, Medgar’s body is being exhumed in the hope that it will offer new evidence.

After Medgar’s coffin is raised, his body is transported to a medical facility for a second autopsy. There, medical examiners retrieve bullet fragments and give them to investigators who are once again building a case against the prime suspect in the murder: Byron De La Beckwith.

Then six months after the exhumation, Beckwith is arrested again. In January 1994, his third trial begins—but this time, there’s a key difference in the courtroom. Segregation laws no longer stop Black people serving on juries in Mississippi, and eight members of the jury in this trial are Black.

The prosecution presents a similar case to thirty years ago but with several key additions. The bullet fragments recovered during the second autopsy provide extra proof that the fatal shot was fired with Beckwith’s rifle. And an FBI investigator who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s testifies that Beckwith boasted about killing a Black man.

The 71-year-old Beckwith does not take the stand in his own defense. But he does wear a Confederate flag pin, and observers take that as a sign that he’s unrepentant about his racist beliefs. After two days of deliberation, the jury finds Beckwith guilty of murder, and the judge sentences him to life in prison.

The following year, Myrlie Evers will be appointed chair of the NAACP, and in 2013 she will deliver the invocation at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. Myrlie will always say that she merely continued the work of her husband Medgar, who was assassinated for his beliefs and didn’t receive justice for three decades until Byron De La Beckwith was finally convicted for his murder on February 5th, 1994.

Outro

Next on History Daily. February 6th, 1934. Far-right supporters rally in Paris, creating a crisis that threatens to plunge France into a fascist revolution.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Jack O’Brien.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.