overlooked-civil-rights-activists

“Dedicated to everyone who
believes in peace, love, and
non-violence, let’s keep the
torch burning.”
inscription on the plaque of the statue
of Medgar Evers at The Jackson Library.

Overlooked Civil Rights
Activists

Ask Charles Evers to name additional
overlooked civil rights activists besides
Medgar and he warms up as he recalls:

FANNIE LOU HAMER who was beaten severely
and thrown in jail for trying to register
to vote who founded the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party that challenged
Mississippi’s Democratic Party.
“the greatest woman who ever walked. She
got tired of being tired. She worked
with us and fought for the freedom of all
people and died, almost without a penny.”

AARON HENRY was an important and
underrated figure in the movement, who
survived fire bombings of his house and
drugstore, and who later became the head
of the NAACP in Mississippi. Henry was
the cofounder of The Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party. On the night of his
murder, Medgar had driven Henry to the
airport. He was also born on the same
day as Medgar but three years earlier.

“Aaron was like a brother to us. They
fire bombed his house. And one time,
(when we had been jailed for marching
without a permit at a protest that he had
organized, they (the authorities) tied
him to a garbage truck and had him clean
the streets where he lived in
Clarksdale. We said why don’t you say
something about it, and he told us, ‘No,
I want to prove I’m not above anyone else
and this is how people are getting
treated down here.”

TRM HOWARD “He really started the civil
rights movement in Mound Bayou and
should be given a lot more credit for it.”