Another civil right great has died. Charles Evers died on July 22 at his daughter’s home in Brandon, Miss. He was 97.
Evers “gave up life as a petty racketeer to succeed his assassinated brother Medgar Evers as a Mississippi civil rights leader in 1963, becoming the state’s first Black mayor since Reconstruction and a candidate for governor and United States senator,” The New York Times reported.
His death follows the deaths of civil rights leaders Rev. C.T. Vivian and Representative John Lewis, both of whom had marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Charles Evers organized registration drives for Black voters, economic boycotts against white businesses, and challenges to the state’s white Democratic Party structure, The Times reported.
He went on to become a nationally known civil rights figure. Senator Robert F. Kennedy tapped Evers as co-chairman of his Mississippi campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. He also led Mississippi’s first racially-integrated delegation to the Democratic National Convention that year in Chicago. And. he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1968.
In 1969, he was elected mayor of Fayette, Miss., becoming the first African-American in a century to hold that post.
“Hands that picked cotton can now pick the mayor,” Evers said at the time.
In 1971, Evers became the first African-American candidate for governor of Mississippi. His run, as an independent, was backed by Coretta Scott King, the Congressional Black Caucus, Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York and civil rights leaders across the country, The Times reported. He was defeated by Democrat William Waller.
In 1978, Mr. Evers ran as an independent for a United States Senate and finished third, with nearly a quarter of the vote.
“After four nonconsecutive terms as the mayor of Fayette — he lost a re-election bid in 1981 and won the office back in 1985 — Evers lost a 1989 Democratic primary for a fifth term and retired from active politics,” The Times reported.
“It was time for a change,” he said after losing the primary. “I’m tired of being out front. Let someone else be out front.”
He also owned a shopping center in Fayette.
James Charles Evers was born in Decatur, Miss., on Sept. 11, 1922, the oldest of four children of James and Jessie Wright Evers. His father was a laborer, and mother a maid. His parents also owned a funeral home and sawmill. Charles and Medgar, who was three years younger, grew up in a segregated society and once saw a family friend lynched, The Times reported.
Charles joined the Army in 1941 and served in the Pacific in World War II. In 1950 received a degree from HBCU Alcorn A. & M., (now Alcorn State University).
In 1951, he married Manie Magee. They had four daughters, and divorced in 1974.
After a year serving with his reserve unit in the Korean War, Evers moved to Philadelphia, Miss. He opened a hotel, restaurant, cab service, and gas station, became a disc jockey, but also promoted prostitution and bootlegging. Rivals drove him out, and in 1956 he fled to Chicago, where he continued his businesses and rackets there.
When his brother Medgar was shot and killed on June 12, 1963, in an ambush in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Charles vowed to continue Medgar’s fight.
“Evers died of ‘natural causes’ at a home in the Jackson, Mississippi, suburb of Brandon, where he was surrounded by relatives,” PBS reported.
Evers was honored by many on Twitter. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump (@Attorney Crump) tweeted: “Civil rights leader Charles Evers died today at 97. Brother of Medgar Evers, Charles was Mississippi’s first Black mayor since Reconstruction. Rest in power, good sir. #RipCharlesEvers“
Erick Rees (@ErickRees21) tweeted: “So many civil rights icons have gone. Evers, Lewis, and C.T Vivian. They led us by example. Now it’s ours to continue the fight. Your brother has been waiting. Rest easy.”
