Transcripts For CSPAN Medgar Evers House 20240712

Our free radio app, and be part of the conversation through the cspan program. Cspan, created by americas Television Companies as a Public Service and brought to today by your television provider. Today marks the 57th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader medic are actors in medgar evers in jackson, mississippi. More about the tragic events. For many of us that have gone thiseas, fought for country, fought for mississippi, for alabama. Ht we fought for north carolina. We fought for illinois. We fought for every state in this union. Now were going to stay here and see the things that the mayor have said become a reality. 15 minutes after midnight he got out of car and 40 miles away a sniper fired a single shot. The bullet hit him in the back and crashed through his body and into an open window of the house. He died within an hour at a jackson hospital. You are in the formal home of medgar evers. He was born and raised in decatur, mississippi. He talked about when you read about him and listening to him talk, he knew the differences how the races that were made between the races. He never could understand why. He talked about having white playmates. He had this friend. They were hunting and fished together. It was about when his friend got to be the age of 16 that they went their different ways. He talked about seeing his friend. He was going downtown and he saw his friend standing on the corner with other whites. They called him nigger, they all did and his friend said it but he dropped his head when he did it. He talked about he said i knew the difference. That is the situation in corruption. He said i knew the difference. I could never understand why i was that way. He talked to his father about it and his father told him what the responsibilities are. But in reading and listening to people talk, it really came home to him just how much differences between the races. He witnessed lynching when he was 12. His father said that is what they do. He was a little bit angry, phrases rated. He was hurt. Getting away from it, getting away from mississippi when he was 16 and he served in world war ii. As he traveled about, he said defending america, it did not matter about the color of his skin until he came back home to mississippi. He tried to register to vote. He and his brother charles tried to register to vote and a group of white men ran them off with shotguns. We ran, we did not go up against those men. But it made him get serious and that is when he got back into he finished his two years of high school and he enrolled in college majoring in business administration. After he graduated and moved to mount bayou, mississippi. This young man lived there who was a black man who was rich. He had this insurance company. So he gave him his first job of selling insurance for him and he said he started out in the little town of clarksville, mississippi selling insurance. He was trying to sell insurance. He began to look at the conditions in which these people were living and he talked about black people not knowing what insurance was. As he was talking to them and watching their conditions, looking at their conditions and looking at the reactions that he was getting when he talked about human rights, civil right, the ncaap, getting registered to vote and people would tell him these stories, which were true. What was happening to people in the area. In fact, in many places there were no schools for blacks and if you fried to register to vote what would happen to you, what happened to others and what could happen to you. He was telling them that is your right. Once they would not allow him back on their properties when the word got out which he was doing. He started several boycotts. Blacks would buy the gas but you could not use the bathroom. Prices in the Grocery Stores would go up when blacks went in and a lot of times you had to stand in line until the whites were served. So he said dont buy the gas, dont buy the groceries well go somewhere where you are treated a little bit better. Before medgar, the naacp did not have a secretary. He got people registered to vote, taking com place of employments and checking what was going on. I believe he was selected by ncaap to do that. When ole miss denied him admission. He had to come into jackson to start with ncaap. They did not take him serious until after he came into jackson and to get things flowing so to speak and got involved with the student movement. You had the freedom riders who came in and i think that is when people began to see he was shaking things up. He did not give hundred when he blacks could not speak. I heard it when i went away to college. He was not on television. He was not on radio. So i think this is when people began to see they were not going turn people around. I call them the grassroot people. The foot soldiers began to get involved, women, children, began to get involved. This is when they saw this man is really shaking things up. Dont shop for anything on capitol street. Lets have the merchants build economic capitol pension. He he was not on the radio. This is when people began to see they were not going to turn people around. This is when the foot soldiers get involved, women, children. This is when they saw this man is really shaking things up. Dont shop for anything on capitol street. Lets have the merchants build economic capitol pension. I had a merchant call me and they talked to their National Business and they want me to tell you that we dont need nigger business. This helps the council, the council that is dedicated to keeping you and i secondclass citizens. Finally, we will be demonstrating here until freedom comes to jackson, mississippi. [applause] this is where he came to live in 1955. It was historic in that he came into this neighborhood after he was field secretary. This was the neighborhood that was one of the subdivisions being developed by two black world war ii veterans. This never happened before in jackson, mississippi. Probably in the state of mississippi, but these two veterans were developing a onestreet subdivision, and there were constructing homes for what they called middleclass, professional blacks. You had your lawyers, doctors, your teachers, business owners, living on this one street subdivision. Then they were going to put this subdivision in between two white subdivisions. It was a trial thing and this is where he game. Where he came. He selected this particular lot because it was a house on the left and there was one on the right and he knew what was happening and what could happen. He knew what things were happening to the family, the threats being made. Those kinds of things. He came in changing his house plans. He did not want a front door. This is the only house in the area that does not have a front door. He asked that because he wanted his main entrance to be through the carport. He was going to teach his family when they come through the driveway and they would exit the car on the passenger side so they can use the wall as protection. The first year of the house, they were here, someone shot through this window, the living room window. That is when mrs. Evers say put medgar on the floor so the kids will be lower than the window. That is when they all got on the floor when it was shot for the second time. She slept with a gun and medgar with a pistol or vice versus. He knew his life. He knew people were following him. That is why he took all of these precautions. He talked about, in meetings, he talked about how when he got a car he had a mechanic friend and he would take it to him and have it soupedup to outrun people who would chase him. That is why, you know, sometimes you have a calling and you cannot let go and that is what you he would talk about. I had a number of threatening calls. People calling say they are going to kill me. They are going to blow my home up and i only had a few hours to live. 15 minutes passed midnight evers got out of his home and from 40 yards away, a sniper fired a single shot. The bullet hit him in the back crashed through his body through a window into the house. Mrs. Evers talked about she and the kids in the back of the house and she heard him drive up and not coming in the house. He heard the shots and my kids started to crawl across the floor starting to go to the bathroom. He told the kids that the safest place was the bathtub. She heard a thump and he was coming around her car trying to get to the door. She heard a couple more shots and she thought they were still shooting but the other two shots were mr. Wells next door. I was hoping to run whoever it was away. But he and another friend came to medgars rescue, so to speak. Mrs. Evers say he was laying face down with his keys in his right hand. I thought he was dead but he wasnt. He was saying something but they could not understand him. They brought him in inside the house and they took off a mattress off the bed and transported him to the hospital. In jackson mississippi in 1963 there lived a man who was brave he fought for freedom all of his life they lay medgar evers in his grave x following his death, the movement seemed like it died a little bit. They had his funeral over at the temple and after that he was buried in Article National Arlington National cemetery. After a period of time, no one was in the house. It had gotten in bad shape. There are other exhibits about medgar in other museums. But we wanted to do something with the house. We may not have known exactly what we were going to do. People wanted to come and see where medgar and his family lived. There are people right here in mississippi who is my age or older who dont really know who medgar evers was. I want people to know who he was. I want people to know what a great difference he made in mississippi. Not only in mississippi but throughout the world. One of the things he said is i like mississippi. This is home. I like fishing here. I like hunting. Mississippi is a wonderful place to grow up. Why should i leave . I love mississippi. When you looked a it like this, if he left mississippi, what about all the other people . Everyone could leave mississippi, why should you . You have the same rights to everyone else born here. Why do you have to run away to some other unknown city or state to get a decent education to make a living for your family, to get a decent job to be able to support your family, to have a nice home. Why should you have to do that . So medgar evers decided to stay here in mississippi and thank god he did. A look my 12 some of our Live Programming today. Coming up, it is noncivil unrest amid the coronavirus pandemic. The center for digicam International Studies in the Bob Schieffer college of two. Edications post that covered coverage. About one hour later, the House Science Committee looks at funding for Fire Departments and First Responders during the pandemic. Live coverage starts at 12 30 p. M. Eastern also here on cspan. At 1 00 p. M. Eastern, virginia senator mark warner and Gerald Connolly hold a town hall discussion to talk about issues such as Police Reform and covid19. 1 00coverage starts at line at cspan2, on cspan. Org, or you can