Myrlie Evers lived in Jackson, Mississippi. Her and her husband, Medgar, actually lived about eight blocks from where I was mostly raised, in north Jackson.
At about the age of 14, I used to ride my bicycle all over the area, including that part of Jackson on the south side of Northside Drive. That's where the Evers lived in an all-black neighborhood. The proper name back then was still to call it the colored neighborhood.
My parents and my sister and I lived on the north side of Northside Drive, in an all-white neighborhood.
I lived on my red bicycle. I went everywhere and can clearly remember those times I decided to venture to the south side of Northside Drive. I can remember their house, even though the Evers had yet to become a part of a news event.
Their house looked a lot like our house. Both neighborhoods were middle-class.
I also remember seeing a station wagon driving around the neighborhood, a vehicle with a large CB radio antenna strapped down to the top side of the car.
One night, well before I got into the broadcast business and became a disc jockey/newscaster, I remember that there was some kind of event down on the south side. It turned out it was the night Medgar Evers was shot. Witnesses said they saw a light-colored station wagon with a CB antenna at the time.
Later on, Byron De La Beckwith, a fertilizer salesman, Klan member and owner of a station wagon with a CB antenna, was arrested and charged and much later convicted of causing Medgar's death.
I never personally met Myrlie or Medgar but years later I met Medgar's brother Charles at his campaign office on Farish Street. He was running for governor and he wanted me, as by now I was a kind of well-known radio personality on the Mississippi Radio Network, to be the voice of his commercials.
I contacted several of the radio stations that carried my newscasts and they all said, pretty much, “Sure, why not. Go for his. His money is green.” (That's an exact quote from the owner of WBAQ in Greenville.)
And, thus I was the Voice of the Medgar Evers Campaign for Governor of Mississippi.
There was no way we were going to win and we knew it. But we were running to make a statement and to get respect. We got lots of respect and 22% of the vote. That was extremely gratifying, considering that Charles ran as an independent, Charles was black, and the opponent, Bill Waller, was the candidate of the Democratic Party. (The Republicans did not run statewide candidates in those days in Mississippi because Democrats won everything without even trying.)
Bill Waller, who I also got to know during the campaign, also happened to be the prosecutor who first tried De La Beckwith for Medgar's murder.
Today, Barack Hussein Obama was will be sworn in publicly, with a hand on his Bible, with Mrylie Evers beside him.
At about the age of 14, I used to ride my bicycle all over the area, including that part of Jackson on the south side of Northside Drive. That's where the Evers lived in an all-black neighborhood. The proper name back then was still to call it the colored neighborhood.
My parents and my sister and I lived on the north side of Northside Drive, in an all-white neighborhood.
I lived on my red bicycle. I went everywhere and can clearly remember those times I decided to venture to the south side of Northside Drive. I can remember their house, even though the Evers had yet to become a part of a news event.
Their house looked a lot like our house. Both neighborhoods were middle-class.
I also remember seeing a station wagon driving around the neighborhood, a vehicle with a large CB radio antenna strapped down to the top side of the car.
One night, well before I got into the broadcast business and became a disc jockey/newscaster, I remember that there was some kind of event down on the south side. It turned out it was the night Medgar Evers was shot. Witnesses said they saw a light-colored station wagon with a CB antenna at the time.
Later on, Byron De La Beckwith, a fertilizer salesman, Klan member and owner of a station wagon with a CB antenna, was arrested and charged and much later convicted of causing Medgar's death.
I never personally met Myrlie or Medgar but years later I met Medgar's brother Charles at his campaign office on Farish Street. He was running for governor and he wanted me, as by now I was a kind of well-known radio personality on the Mississippi Radio Network, to be the voice of his commercials.
I contacted several of the radio stations that carried my newscasts and they all said, pretty much, “Sure, why not. Go for his. His money is green.” (That's an exact quote from the owner of WBAQ in Greenville.)
And, thus I was the Voice of the Medgar Evers Campaign for Governor of Mississippi.
There was no way we were going to win and we knew it. But we were running to make a statement and to get respect. We got lots of respect and 22% of the vote. That was extremely gratifying, considering that Charles ran as an independent, Charles was black, and the opponent, Bill Waller, was the candidate of the Democratic Party. (The Republicans did not run statewide candidates in those days in Mississippi because Democrats won everything without even trying.)
Bill Waller, who I also got to know during the campaign, also happened to be the prosecutor who first tried De La Beckwith for Medgar's murder.
Today, Barack Hussein Obama was will be sworn in publicly, with a hand on his Bible, with Mrylie Evers beside him.
