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Medgar Wiley Evers was born on July 2, 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi to Jesse and James Evers.
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In 1932-The brutal lynching of Willie Tingle, a Evers family friend had a profound impact on Medgar and his brother Charles, eventually shaping their activist identities.
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In 1943 Medgar Evers was inducted into the military along with his older brother Charles Evers.
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Medgar Evers was discharged from the military in 1945 as a sergeant.
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Medgar Evers is enrolled at Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University) and would go on to major in business association.
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In 1951, while still a student at Alcorn College, Medgar Evers meets Dr. T.R.M Howard in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Originally from Kentucky, Howard moved to Mound Bayou in the early 1940s and became a successful physician, businessman and charasmatic political activist. That year, he founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) in Cleveland and led the organization to advocate black rights, particularly the right to vote. Evers was a founding member of the organization.
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Medgar Evers marries classmate Myrlie Beasley and they go on to have three children together
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In 1952, the couple moves to Mound Bayou, Mississippi where Medgar Evers became a salesman for Howard's Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company. Mound Boyou served as a training ground for Evers' activism. He helped organize the RNLC a boycott of gas stations which denied blacks the use of their restroom facilities. The boycotters distributed bumper stickers with the slogan: 'Don't buy gas where you can't use the Restroom."
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Medgar Evers applies to the University of Mississippi Law School, but is denied
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Medgar Evers is named the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. Following his appointment, Medgar and his family move to Jackson, Mississippi to establish the field office. In his position, Evers helps to establish a series of NAACP Youth Councils around the state. He also organizes a series of boycott campaigns most notable among them are the boycott of the then segregated Mississippi State Fair and a boycott of white owned businesses of Capitol Street
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Medgar Evers is threatened continuously. In May 1963, a molotov cocktail was thrown into the carport of his home. Five days before his death, he was nearly run down by a car after he emerged from the NAACP office.
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On June 12, 1963 Medgar Evers was unloading his car in his driveway when Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the Ku Klux Klan shot him in the back of the head at point blank range.
