Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers

“You can kill a man but you can’t kill an idea.”~Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers,  7/02/1925-06/12/1963

50 years later, and what would Medgar Evers think of America now? What would he think of Black Americans? I wonder what Mr. Evers would think of today’s Black American youths, their pop culture, some of their styles with those that wear their pants ‘sagging’, those that don’t want to be seen as too smart or speak well because that’s too ‘White’.  The young and older Americans that now have freedoms gained from the very lives of Civil Rights Leaders such as Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and yes even Jesse Jackson Sr., and yet they are still today talking about the White man holding them down.

I wonder how Mr. Evers would feel to hear such defeatist talk from the ones that were not even born during his time.  They did not have to find a way around to obtain an education of higher learning.  They do not have to walk 12 miles to school because the Negro schools did not have a bus.  They do not have to enter the back door for any establishment.

50 years later I wonder what Medgar Evers would think of the government, that same government that he worked so hard to change their perception of the rights of all it’s citizens regardless of the color of their skin.  Medgar worked diligently to have Jim Crow laws abolished, to open up voter registration, and integrate schools, he is most noted for Mississippi University’s desegregation and the law suit brought against that institution’s law school with Thurgood Marshall as his attorney.  Medgar’s brother,  Charles Evers who made a switch to the Republican party and in his book titled, Have no Fear, The Charles Evers Story he states:

I feel there should be blacks in every Party. I believe in most of the things Republicans stand for….I’m against abortion. I’m for prayer in schools. I’m for economic independence. I don’t believe in welfare. I think it’s a joke. I believe welfare makes you lazy and unproductive. The only thing I don’t agree with is the war. I think the war is wrong. I think the President is wrong on this. The main thing I believe in is freedom. I don’t think the Republicans say it as much as Democrats, but I think the Democrats say one thing and do another. Most of them are white.”

The war that Charles Evers was speaking of is the Iraqi War and his criticism of President Bush for going in that direction. It should also be noted that Charles Evers went on to state that he became a Republican because he believes that blacks should be in every party, yet it’s also aligns with his principles, which is what I think far too many miss that point.  I wonder if Medgar might have switched parties himself based upon how his own brother could see where the Democrat party was heading.

What would Medgar Evers think of the NAACP, ACLU, and the direction as well leadership of these organizations today? There are so many questions one could only wish to ask a civil rights leader of the caliber of Medgar and his fellow freedom patriots.  Perhaps we should be asking ourselves (those that are advocating for civil liberties) is this how our predecessors as well as God would have approached this matter?  Make no mistake about it those civil right leaders of the past were Godly men, but men never the less and therefore apt to humanly mistakes but they knew what was right as ordained by God.

A veteran that was involved in the invasion of Normandy, a Husband, a father, a civil rights leader.  I wonder how many really remember the real man and not just a Hollywood movie based on a man that believed so much in the cause for so many, one that could have at any time left a state that did not want “his kind” there and creating agitation,  one that  KNEW without a doubt he would be murdered and yet continued to fight for freedom.

The gifts of God should be enjoyed by all citizens in Mississippi.~Medgar Evers