This Humble Mississippi Home Witnessed a Civil Rights Assassination That Took 31 Years to Solve

The Medgar Evers Home

In Jackson, Mississippi, a modest ranch house sits on  Margaret Walker Alexander Street.

It doesn’t look remarkable at all, until you learn about the people who lived there and one fateful night that changed both their lives and America.

Here’s how one family’s house became a piece of history.

A Simple Home for a Simple Family

LeRoy Burnett built this ranch house in 1956. The African American WWII veteran constructed it in Jackson’s Elraine Subdivision, the first planned neighborhood for Black middle-class families in Mississippi.

Here, Medgar and Myrlie Evers chose 2332 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive (then called Guynes Street) as their family home.

With its brick and wood siding, low roof, and steel windows, it looked like countless other postwar houses across America.

Mississippi’s First NAACP Field Secretary

Medgar Evers returned from fighting Nazis in World War II to battle racism at home. In 1954, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hired him as Mississippi’s first field secretary.

Just a few days earlier, the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision had struck down school segregation.

Evers’ task: make that ruling reality in America’s most segregated state.

He had already tested those barriers himself.

He applied to the University of Mississippi Law School in February 1954, knowing they would reject him because of his race. This direct challenge began the long fight to desegregate Ole Miss.

He also registered Black voters across Mississippi, creating new NAACP chapters in hostile territory.

The Family’s Fight for Civil Rights

The Evers family didn’t separate work from home life. They couldn’t afford to.

Their modest house became an extension of the NAACP office, with strategy sessions around the dining table and constant phone calls late into the night.

Myrlie Evers herself worked as her husband’s secretary by day. By night, she helped plan boycotts and protests while raising their three children.

Together they investigated Emmett Till’s 1955 lynching, bringing national attention to Mississippi’s brutality.

Their partnership made them twice as effective and twice as threatening to white supremacists.

A Home Chosen for Survival

The Evers family chose this house for protection, because Medgar knew he topped the target list for white supremacist groups.

Unlike most homes, it had no front door facing the street. The main entrance opened from the carport on the side, providing better cover.

They chose a mid-block unit rather than a corner lot to limit potential attack angles.

The Evers Lived Under Constant Threat

White Citizens’ Councils publicly marked Medgar for death, and his name appeared on widely circulated hit lists.

The threats followed him home, forcing them to create survival routines.

The Evers children—Darrell, Reena, and James—knew exactly what to do when gunfire erupted. They practiced dropping to the floor and crawling to the bathroom tub, the safest spot in the house.

At night, mattresses went directly on the floor. This simple precaution kept the family below window level, out of a sniper’s sight line.

The First Firebomb

On May 28, 1963, attackers threw a Molotov cocktail at the Evers’ carport.

Myrlie extinguished the flames with a garden hose. No fire trucks came to help, and police called it a prank. No one investigated the incident seriously.

The Night of June 12, 1963

Medgar’s final evening began with a strategy meeting on June 11 about countering Alabama Governor George Wallace, who physically blocked Black students from his state’s university that very day.

On television that night, President Kennedy proposed sweeping civil rights legislation that further inflamed segregationists.

A few minutes past midnight, Evers pulled into his carport carrying NAACP T-shirts emblazoned with “Jim Crow Must Go.”

As he stepped out from his car, a rifle bullet struck him in the back, fired from a vacant lot about 200 feet away.

Medgar Evers died less than an hour later at the local hospital. He was just 37 years old.

The Investigation and Initial Trials

Police found an Enfield .30-06 rifle in bushes near the scene. The weapon’s scope bore fingerprints matching Byron De La Beckwith, a White Citizens’ Council member and fertilizer salesman.

Besides the fingerprints, witnesses placed Beckwith’s car near the Evers home that night.

Both 1964 trials ended with hung juries composed entirely of white men.

During the second trial, Ku Klux Klan members packed the courtroom while burning crosses around Jackson.

Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett visited Beckwith during the first trial and even shook his hand in front of jurors.

The case was eventually dismissed.

Myrlie Evers Continues the Fight

Myrlie moved with her children to California in 1964 but kept their home as a rental property.

She eventually established the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute in Jackson to continue her husband’s work for civil rights and education.

During this time, she also documented inconsistencies in the alibis provided for Beckwith.

For instance, police officers who provided Beckwith’s alibi gave contradicting times in their statements.

And when officials claimed case files were lost, she produced copies she had preserved since the 1960s.

Medgar Evers Finally Gets Justice

New evidence emerged in 1989. Documents showed the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state agency, had secretly helped Beckwith’s defense by illegally investigating potential jurors.

Prosecutor Bobby DeLaughter partnered with Myrlie to reopen the case.

By then, Beckwith was 73 years old. He wore a Confederate flag pin to court each day of his 1994 trial.

Six witnesses testified that Beckwith had bragged about killing Evers, and the jury, now racially diverse, convicted him on February 5, 1994.

Beckwith received a life sentence and died in prison in 2001 at age 80.

Justice had taken 31 years.

Preserving a Historic Legacy

In 1993, Myrlie donated the property to Tougaloo College, a historically Black college with deep connections to the civil rights movement.

The National Park Foundation later provided funds to acquire the property from Tougaloo College, and it eventually became a national monument.

Visiting Medgar Evers Home

The Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument is at 2332 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive in Jackson, Mississippi.

The site offers guided tours Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Admission is free. The National Park Service recommends reservations for groups larger than six people.

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