Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron De LA Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South

by Maryanne Vollers

The civil rights movement was just beginning to catch fire in Mississippi on the night in 1963 when white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith crouched in the honeysuckle across the street from NAACP leader Medgar Evers's house and shot him in the back. Three trials and thirty years later, a jury convicted Beckwith of murder and sent him to prison for life, finally concluding one of the most rankling cases of the civil rights era.

In "Ghosts of Mississippi," journalist Maryanne Vollers tells the inside story of that state's struggle to confront the ghosts of its violent past in order to bring a killer to justice, weaving a compelling narrative that captures the journey from the old South to the new. Drawing on her rare access to prosecutors, Evers's family, and Beckwith himself, Vollers re-creates the events of Evers's life and death, while bringing to light new facts and insights into the assassination case and the conspiracy theories that surround it. The result is a thrilling tale of racism, murder, courage, redemption, and the ultimate triumph of justice.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Crime, Biography, Politics, American History

411 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 1995

About the author

Maryanne Vollers is an American author, journalist and ghostwriter. Her first book, Ghosts of Mississippi, was a finalist in non-fiction for the 1995 National Book Award. Her many collaborations include the memoirs of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dr. Jerri Nielsen, Sissy Spacek, Ashley Judd, and Billie Jean King. Her second book on domestic terrorism, Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph – Murder, Myth, and the Pursuit of an American Outlaw, was published in 2006. A former editor at Rolling Stone she has written articles for publications such as Esquire, GQ, Sports Illustrated, Time, and The New York Times Magazine.

Reviews

[Cynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the American South, we often recognize the past that continues into today and fret over what will come next. Some black professionals know they have been cut out of decision-making positions and fear that they will still be cut out. See news article Jackson-Madison NAACP to rally for School Board's Doris Black

The NAACP members and friends in Jackson, Mississippi continue the the work of Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers sought to promote better education, better employment, and courtesy titles. Ms Doris Black has been fighting for the education of young black students amd now she is fighting (at the time of the article) for her position on the board. There is still much work to do in Madison-Jackson school system. A biography of Medgar Evers can serve to remind those of us interested and somehow serving to continue to serve people of color (and women).

In this biography Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron De LA Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South we see a hand greater than a human being's guided the commitment of Medgar and Myrlie Evers-Williams and the ability of Bobby Delaughter to miraculously find the evidence to convict Byrin de la Beckwith. Just to see the Hand of the Divine might make reading this book worthwhile.

[Porter Broyles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid 4 stars.

I started reading this book not really knowing who Medgar Evers was, so I didn't really know what to expect.

Now, when it comes to Civil Rights, I am better read than your average Joe. Suddenly I realize that Evers was the guy who tried to integrate Ole Miss Law School. I know who he is.

Evers was a leader of the NAACP in Mississippi and then gunned down outside his home. His murder was national news. You can't read about the 60s civil rights movement and not encounter Evers.

Usually just a passing reference or example of Injustice, but if you read Civil Rights, you have encountered Medgar Evers.

Suddenly the book takes on a new tone.

This was a fun quick read. It is not a difficult (eg challenging book). It isn't going to force you to reexamine your life or world view, but it will prove enlightening on the period.

The book reads like a screen play, this makes it easy to process.

[Ann T · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I originally went to check this out of my library, I wasn't able to because it is a non-circulatory book. I wasn't sure why. I was going to pass on reading it as I wouldn't be able to sit at the library every lunch hour from work and read it. I did however, end up buying a used copy through Amazon and I am so glad I did. Now that my family lives in the Southeast (Chattanooga, TN), I have been engrossed in reading more history of the south including the Civil War, the Memphis Tennessee Orphanage that kidnapped children and sold them to wealthy people, the Chattanooga area and the battles that occurred, etc. Ghosts of Mississippi lands right there in the history. Some of it was even in Chattanooga itself. Which made is doubly interesting. I commend the Evers family for all that they did for desegregation. While the topic is so hard to believe that it even occurred in this lifetime, it was such an important time for equality. I do still plan to find out why I couldn't check out the book from the library. I am curious as to their answer.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

a historical MUST READ for those who have ever spent any time in mississippi. however, it is a bit dry at times. it helped explain the problems of current day mississippi and how it differs from its neighbors. the history of mississippi is fascinating, dark, mysterious, and intense. this helped contextualize the on-going struggles the state has with its racial, socioeconomic and religious identities.

[William Tabunut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally, I wasn't ready for this book, so I put it down. I picked it back up on February 5th, coincidentally the 29th anniversary of the conviction of Mr. Evers' murderer, and it took me to the JimCrow South, a journey full of fear, sadness, hate, growth, and hope that one day justice would be served, which after decades of waiting the Evers Family finally got the closure they so richly deserved.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent writing and overview of the thirty years of this sad period in Mississippi's history. Justice will prevail!

[Caroline Muller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghosts of Mississippi. This book is about segregation in the South and the murder of Medgar Evers. Maryanne Vollers is the author of this great book. She has spent time in Africa and around the world as a writer. She has written for Time magazine and was a radio broadcaster. To write this book Maryanne would have to do many interviews with Medgar Evers family and friends. She would also interview his killer Byron De La Beckwith. Beckwith was an American white Supremacist who was not found guilty for Evers murder for thirty years. Medgar was a civil rights activist who is often forgotten. Although some might know his name, his work for equality in Mississippi still lives on. Evers wife Myrlie and others fought tirelessly for thirty years to bring Medgar justice. Throughout Mississippi (and other southern states) history there has been segregation and inequality to its citizens. Many who have fought against segregation have suffered from death (like Evers) or were socially harassed or avoided. This stories main idea is that no matter what race or religion you are, you should be treated with respect. It is also showing us how far Mississippi and the South have come from those days of segregation. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the fighting for equality in the old south in America. Even though Medgar’s life was cut short, he has showed the world a lot. He and his followers have showed that if you work hard for a goal and believe in it, it will most likely come true. I really enjoyed how this book showed so much detail that it feels like you are in the story. It is very aggravating when you hear these stories of race injustice in America. Some parts of the book get confusing when Maryanne describe all the names of the characters. She writes the characters with their last names, so sometimes it is difficult to remember all the names. The best written part of the book I personally think was when Maryanne described the childhood and early life of Medgar and Byron De La Beckwith. The cover artwork was a picture of Medgar himself so I think there could have been some other pictures that represent this book on the cover. This book covers a wide variety of readers. If you read this book you will be inspired and truly moved by the dedication and persistence to end inequality in America.

[Libby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoroughly researched and engaging book about Medgar Evers and his killer, Byron de la Beckwith. We start off learning about Beckwith's background, interwoven with chapters about Evers, his brother, wife, and children, and the night he was killed. Beckwith, also called "Delay" was tried twice in the 1960's and both times was not convicted due to hung juries. Finally, in the late 1990's, he was tried again, and even though many of the original witnesses were dead, their testimonies were read at the new trial. Interesting reading although I think too many real people are described when they are not ultimately important.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well written book about a time in our not so distant history when Black lives really didn’t matter. Frightening. Medgar Evers worked for the in a NAACP and fought for the rights to live in peace, to be able to eat at restaurants, to be able to go to libraries, and to be called by his name instead of “boy”. Justice for Medgar finally comes 30 years later, thanks to Myrlie Evers and Bobby DeLaughter.

[Mike Boyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historically Important

The author brought to factual and vivid detail the long winding road in bringing justice for Medgar Evers assassination.

Very detailed and very well written.

The author kept the narrative fresh and interesting while maintaining proper historical context and dignity
Well done.

[David Gallianetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, thoroughly researched look at the saga to convict the killer of Medgar Evers. A must read for those interested in civil rights history. I admire how the author has used her interviews to make this history come to life on these pages.

[Michael Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good and illuminating read, that illustrates the racial tensions in the US. The film only covers a small part of this intriguing read, and the circumstances surrounding the death Medgar Evers, a leading light in the Civil Rights movement.

[Theresa LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful & absorbing!

Excellent read. Engrossing. Heartbreaking, infuriating, full of ups & downs. More twists & turns than most thriller novels. I can’t recommend this fine book highly enough!

[Rogers Pittman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed

Not only do you learn of the trials, but you really learn how important Evers was to the cause. Great book.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing, heartbreaking and healing read.

[Harry Reese]

I lived through this era, though I was young. Being a southerner, I was. ironically, blessed with parents who were way ahead of the curve considering the times, our location, their parents and their upbringing. Therefore, bigotry and racism were not practiced or taught in our household. Respect and diversity were the hallmarks of my early youth which I retain to this day, one of the greatest gifts given by my parents. Myself, I spent some time in Jackson back in the mid-90s and was surprised to discover that the culture of racism was still alive and well and thriving. I was so naive to have believed that things had changed during and after the 60s. And even in this very day, Jim Crow laws and racism still exist in a high degree. This book, however, was a fantastic read.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE STORY OF HOW THE KILLER WAS FINALLY BROUGHT TO JUSTICE

Journalist, author and producer Maryanne Vollers wrote in the first chapter of this 1995, “Byron De La Beckwith was not an ordinary prisoner, and he was not treated like one. When he arrived… he was seventy years old… Beckwith had to be kept away from the other prisoners, who were mostly black. He was such a garrulous, uninhibited racist that he was as likely to call someone a ‘n____r’ to his face now as he was back in 1964… Beckwith was charged with killing a civil rights leader named Medgar Evers, of shooting him in the back in his driveway one hot night in 1963 and leaving him to bleed to death in front of his wife and young children.” (Pg. 3)

She notes that Myrlie Beasley (later Medgar Evers’ wife) “learned the rules of race by instinct, by osmosis. Segregation was just part of the air you breathed back then; it was the way things were. When she went to town, the buses, the water fountains, and rest rooms were separate for whites and blacks, and she knew there were things whites had that she couldn’t use, like pools and libraries. But nobody challenged segregation in her world. Nobody ever discussed it.” (Pg. 36)

In 1955, the Reverend George Lee [a Baptist minister who was active in the NAACP] was murdered. “Medgar Evers took the lessons of the Lee murder to heart. From now on he would be ready. And nobody would ever say again that he was afraid... A month after Lee was gunned down, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the desegregation of schools would proceed ‘with all deliberate speed.’ This was the NAACP’s cue to start a fresh campaign in the most segregated state in the country. The parents of schoolchildren, a handful of NAACP leaders, and Medgar Evers took on the monolithic white power structure to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision. The Justice Department did nothing.” (Pg. 63)

In 1963, the African-American people had organized a boycott to protest segregation and other wrongs: “Medgar Evers had more or less committed himself to the idea of direct action. He quietly encouraged Martin Luther King to come to Jackson. Meanwhile the national leadership of the NAACP scrambled to keep King out of Mississippi… Mayor Thompson went on television to respond that he would never negotiate… Evers decided to demand equal time. For one thing he wanted the people to know that he was no outside agitator. He was a Mississippian… Before this moment, Medgar Evers had just been a name in the newspapers. Very few white people could recognize him. The televised reply put Medgar too far out in front. It focused the attention, and the danger, on one man instead of spreading it around to many.” (Pg. 106-107)

After Evers was murdered, and after his funeral, “Myrlie was alone in her grief, her mind gone somewhere else, when Aaron Henry came up next to her and said, ‘Look behind you, Myrlie.’ She saw them then, thousands of people, young people walking through Jackson, and she realized that Medgar had taken them past their fear. She wished Medgar could see them now.” (Pg. 142)

Vollers notes, “The FBI hadn’t done much for Medgar Evers when he was alive. Now that he was dead, J. Edgar Hoover mobilized hundreds of agents in forty-eight field divisions to help find his killer.” (Pg. 150)

In the 1964 trial of Beckwith, District Attorney interviewed prospective jury members, asking them, “Do you think it’s a crime to kill a n____ in Mississippi?” “Black spectators… shifted angrily in their seats. So it was going to be like this after all. Another kangaroo court, a whitewash, a quick acquittal. Another Emmett Till.” (Pg. 161)

In 1965, the House Un-American Activities Committee “decided to make a big show out of investigating the Ku Klux Klan… The [KKK] White Knights were questioned in January 1966. None said anything useful to the committee… Beckwith appeared relaxed. He was polite, willingly providing the personal information the committee requested. But … when the committee asked him if he even knew Gordon Lackey… ‘Sir, I respectfully decline to answer that question and invoke … the Fifth, First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.’ … On and on it went.” (Pg. 223)

In 1991, an autopsy was [very belatedly] performed on Medgar Evers by Michael Baden, who was now New York State’s chief pathologist: “No X rays had been taken back in 1963. Forensic science was a lot more sophisticated now. When the chest X-rays were developed… Although the part of the bullet that had passed through Evers’s body was still missing, the X ray showed that fragments of that bullet remained in his chest. Enough to present as evidence.” (Pg. 288-289)

In the trial, the jury deliberated only 90 minutes, before returning a verdict of guilty. “Beckwith straightened his gray suit with the tiny Confederate flag pinned to the lapel… He was quiet on the way down the elevator to booking, except for a few words muttered to no one in particular, ‘They got what they wanted.’ … Ron Smothers of the New York Times asked [prosecutors] whether they thought the verdict would change public perceptions of Beckwith. Ed Peters was blunt. ‘Well, he won’t be bragging anymore… Yes, I think justice was done… I’m sorry it took so long, but I’m glad that it was done.’” (Pg. 378-379)

Afterwards, “Myrlie Evers spent the next month on the road, stopping in at the national NAACP convention in New York, fulfilling the speaking engagements she had put off… She had started writing her memoirs … She wanted to record everything… She thought: ‘This must be how it feels to be free.’” (Pg. 384)

This book will be “must reading” for anyone studying the murder of Medgar Evers, and subsequent events.

[Bryan Mcquirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent accounting of Medgar Ever's life, his work, his cold-blooded murder, and the three decades long pursuit of justice.
I know it is a cliche that the book is better than the movie, but this is not even close. It is borderline criminal what was left out about this as story. This book vividly details the hard won fight by citizens to regain their constitutional rights that were stolen away by a vicious and violent segregationist policy of the deep South, and none more violent than Mississippi.
4.5 stars.

[Angela]

Thirty years after the assassination of Medger Evers, a civil rights activist from Mississippi, his killer is finally brought to justice. This story chronicles the history of racism is Mississippi and the 3 trials it took to bring Byron de la Beckwith down.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This contains mini biographies of Medgar Evers and Byron de la Beckwith, as well a civil rights history of Mississippi, and a cold case detective story too. I enjoyed it.

[Chanel Smith]

library read

[Aamenah]

reading about the first and second trial will make you very very mad

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard-hitting, journalistic account of the Medgar Evers murder and the subsequent trials of Byron De La Beckwith, the man who killed him. It also is the story of Myrlie Evers, who was married to Evers, bore his children, raised them after his assassination while achieving a successful career in public service, and who never, ever gave up hope that justice would prevail in Mississippi. And it did.

Vollers has written Ghosts with a breakneck pace. I read the book in one sitting because I couldn't stand not to. It has inspired me to go after books by Myrlie Evers as well as other histories of the Mississippi situation in the 1960s.

Highly recommend.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first time I picked up this book, I wasn’t ready to dive into it with full interest. This second attempt had me enthralled. There were moments that I cried and others gave me chills. While knowing some about the history and living in this state, there were still facts that shocked me about the city and time period itself. There are instances when it gets a little slow but they don’t last very long and are needed for the historical significance. Highly recommend.

[Joletta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great quick read telling about Mississippi in the 1960s. Went through Medgar Evers life and death and through all the trials leading to the the trial 30 yrs after his death to finally put away his killer.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only way to ever really get into what happened is to read what hasn't been written and talk to the people who cannot speak. There is a big hole in the shared experience thing when the experience is so very rooted in the actual shared history of so many people that just want to mess it up.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

To call this book amazing doesn't do it justice. I read this book 15 years ago and can remember it vividly. Ms. Vollers wrote a book which gave a heart-wrenching account of the death of Medgar Evers and unbelievably ridiculous difficulties in getting justice for the death of this fascinating man.

[JoAnne Thornton]

Always good to hear the real story