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Summary:

"Myrlie Louise Beasley met Medgar Evers on her first day of college. They fell in love at first sight, married just one year later, and Myrlie left school to focus on their growing family. Medgar became the field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the NAACP, charged with beating back the most intractable and violent resistance to black voting rights in the country. Myrlie served as Medgar's secretary and confidant, working hand in hand with him as they struggled against public accommodations and school segregation, lynching, violence, and sheer despair within their state's "black belt." They fought to desegregate the intractable University of Mississippi, organized picket lines and boycotts, despite repeated terroristic threats, including the 1962 firebombing of their home, where they lived with their three young children. On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers became the highest profile victim of Klan-related assassination of a black civil rights leader at that time; gunned down in the couple's driveway in Jackson. In the wake of his tragic death, Myrlie carried on their civil rights legacy; writing a book about Medgar's fight, trying to win a congressional seat, and becoming a leader of the NAACP in her own right. In this groundbreaking and thrilling account of two heroes of the civil rights movement, Joy-Ann Reid uses Medgar and Myrlie's relationship as a lens through which to explore the on-the-ground work that went into winning basic rights for Black Americans, and the repercussions that still resonate today." -- [Dust jacket]

Table of Contents:

• Prologue: Love
• Mississippi Goddamn...
• Medgar and Myrlie
• Emmett Till
• The house on Guynes Street
• Mississippi freedom
• Freedom from fear
• Countdown
• How to be a civil rights widow
• A tristate conspiracy?
• Justice
• Carnegie Hall
• Many thanks
• Notes
• Index.

Author/Creator:

Reid, Joy-Ann, 1968- , author

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the love story that awakened America [by Reid, J.A.]

Subjects:

Evers, Medgar Wiley, 1925-1963

Evers-Williams, Myrlie

African American civil rights workers — Mississippi — Jackson — Biography

Civil rights workers — Mississippi — Jackson — Biography

Married people — Mississippi — Jackson — Biography

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — Biography

Civil rights movements — Mississippi — History — 20th century

African Americans — Civil rights — Mississippi — History — 20th century

Mississippi — Race relations

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

1900-1999

Married people

African American civil rights workers

Civil rights movements

African Americans — Civil rights

African Americans

Race relations

Civil rights workers

Mississippi — Jackson

Mississippi

United States

Genres:

Biographies

History

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 305-328) and index.

Physical Description:

342 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : black and white illustrations ; 24 cm

Physical Characteristics:

monochrome; illustration; plate

Call Numbers:

F349.J13 R45 2024

ISBNs:

9780063068797 (hardcover)
0063068796 (hardcover)

OCLC Numbers:

1417659381