Your Name: Shawn Preston Name of your website: Honoring the Life and Works of Medgar Evers Purpose of the website: To memorialize the contributions of Medgar Evers, honor the impact his actions had on the Civil Rights Movement, and recognize the significance of his work. Intended audience/viewers: 1. History students interested in leaders of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s. 2. Students learning about the important positive figureheads during Black History 3. Residents of Mississippi researching famous people from the state with positive messages. 4. Members of the NAACP researching chapter leaders. Objectives of your website audience/viewers: 1. Improve learning potential about leaders of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. 2. Raise awareness of NAACP chapter leaders from Mississippi. 3. Create a forum to recognize the importance of leaders for organizing groups in the search for social change. Content Outline Home page: Title: Medgar Evers Home Subtitle: 3 Primary links / 5 secondary links • Medgar Evers Home • Civil Rights Actions • University of Mississippi • Emmett Till • NAACP • Assassination & Aftermath • Myrlie Evers • In Popular Culture Copy/text: (2 – 3 short paragraphs of 3-5 sentences each explaining purpose of site) Medgar Wiley Evers was born in Decatur, Mississippi, on July 2, 1925. He was the third of five children born to farmer and sawmill worker James Evers and his wife Jesse. Evers left high school at the age of 17 to enlist in the still-segregated U.S. Army, eventually rising to the rank of sergeant. In June 1944, Evers’ unit was part of the massive, post D-Day invasion of Europe. He served in both France and Germany until his honorable discharge in 1946. After returning from overseas military service in World War II and completing his secondary education, he became active in the civil rights movement. He became the first field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi. After his assassination in 1963, Evers was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. His murder and the resulting trials inspired civil rights protests, as well as numerous works of art, music, and film. 3-6 Primary slider visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) 3-6 Secondary thumbnail visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) Primary page #2 Title: Civil Rights Actions Subtitles for each subtopic on the page: University of Mississippi, Emmett Till, NAACP Links in addition to the sites primary and secondary links Copy/text for each topic covered on the page (1- 3 short paragraphs max for each subtopic) Upon graduation from college in 1952, Evers began working as an insurance salesman. He became involved in the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL). His work with the RCNL was his first experience as a civil rights organizer. He spearheaded the group’s boycott against gas stations that refused to let blacks use their restrooms. With his older brother, Charles, Evers also worked on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), organizing local affiliates. As a part of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, Evers helped organize the boycott of filling stations which denied blacks use of the stations’ restrooms. Evers and his brother Charles also attended the RCNL’s annual conferences in Mound Bayou between 1952 and 1954, which drew crowds of ten thousand or more. Later in 1954, Evers became the first field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi. He moved with his family to Jackson, Mississippi. As state field secretary, Evers traveled around Mississippi extensively. He recruited new members for the NAACP and organized voter-registration efforts. Evers also led demonstrations and economic boycotts of white-owned companies that practiced discrimination. 3-6 Primary slider visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) 3-6 Secondary thumbnail visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) Secondary page #1 Title: University of Mississippi Subtitles for each subtopic on the page: Links in addition to the sites primary and secondary links Copy/text for each topic covered on the page (1- 3 short paragraphs max for each subtopic) Evers applied to the University of Mississippi Law School in February 1954. After being rejected, he volunteered to help NAACP try to integrate the university with a lawsuit. Thurgood Marshall served as his attorney for this legal challenge to racial discrimination. While he failed to gain admission to the law school, Evers managed to raise his profile with the NAACP. In May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case. This decision legally ended segregation of schools, but it took many years for it to be fully implemented. Seven years after Medgar Evers own failed attempt at gaining admittance to the University of Mississippi, he was instrumental in finally desegregating the school through his work with James Meredith. Meredith, who like Evers had approached the NAACP for help after being denied admission, had taken his case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor in 1962. That September, Meredith, accompanied by Evers, other NAACP members and a protective phalanx of U.S. marshals and federal troops, tried to register for classes, setting off a riot among the mob gathered to prevent him from matriculating. In response, President John F. Kennedy sent in more than 30,000 National Guardsmen, and two people were killed in the melee, but Meredith was successfully admitted and graduated the following year (having previously earned credits at another school). Evers’ involvement in the integration of Ole Miss gained nationwide attention, and garnered him the enmity of local white segregationists. 3-6 Primary slider visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) 3-6 Secondary thumbnail visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) Secondary page #2 Title: Emmett Till Subtitles for each subtopic on the page: Links in addition to the sites primary and secondary links Copy/text for each topic covered on the page (1- 3 short paragraphs max for each subtopic) In August 1955, Chicago-born Emmett Till (just 14 years old and visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi) was kidnapped by a group of white men after reportedly flirting with the wife of a local shopkeeper. Three days later, Till’s beaten and disfigured body was found in a nearby river; he had been shot in the head and weighted down with a metal fan in an attempt to hide his body. In Chicago, his mother’s insistence on a well-publicized, open-casket funeral for her son brought the plight of African Americans in the South to newspapers across the country. In Mississippi, the NAACP, fearful that the highly segregated sheriff’s office wouldn’t mount much of an effort to catch Till’s white murderers, launched their own investigation. Medgar Evers and two other field workers, Ruby Hurley and Amzie Moore, tracked down potential witnesses to the events leading up to and including Till’s abduction. They convinced several people to come forward, keeping them in protective custody when they testified at the 1955 trial of two men accused of killing Till, and then shepherding them out of town in secrecy when the all-white jury returned a verdict of “not guilty” after deliberating for just an hour. 3-6 Primary slider visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) 3-6 Secondary thumbnail visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) Secondary page #3 Title: NAACP Subtitles for each subtopic on the page: Links in addition to the sites primary and secondary links Copy/text for each topic covered on the page (1- 3 short paragraphs max for each subtopic) Returning to Mississippi after his service in WWII, Evers attended Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University) on the G.I. Bill, earning honors as one of the most successful students in the nation. After moving to nearby Mound Bayou, Evers worked as an insurance agent and began attending meetings of a local civil rights organization, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL). In 1954, the same year the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education struck down racial segregation in public schools, Evers became one of the first blacks to apply for admission to the University of Mississippi Law School. When Evers’ application was denied on a technicality (the school claimed that he had failed to include the required letters of recommendation), Evers approached the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for help. NAACP Mississippi State Conference leader E.J. Stringer was so taken with Evers’ poise and determination that he instead offered him a position as the organization’s first field secretary in the state. Evers accepted, and by December 1954 he had opened an office in Jackson where within three years he had nearly doubled NAACP membership in Mississippi to more than 15,000. 3-6 Primary slider visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) 3-6 Secondary thumbnail visuals: (Include a thumbnail and title for each image) Primary page #3 Title: Assassination & Aftermath Subtitles for each subtopic on the page: Myrlie Evers, In popular Culture Links in addition to the sites primary and secondary links Copy/text for each topic covered on the page (1- 3 short paragraphs max for each subtopic) Medgar Evers’ civil rights leadership and investigative work made him a target of white supremacists. In the weeks leading up to his death, the hostility directed towards him grew. His public investigations into the murder of Emmett Till and his vocal support of Clyde Kennard had made him a prominent black leader. On May 28, 1963, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the carport of his home.