Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 18, 1994 TAG: 9401180126
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JACKSON, MISS. LENGTH: Medium
The assassin succeeded in the first aim but was less successful in the second. And once again, Mississippi is seeking to come to grips with both, putting white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith on trial for Evers' murder.
"I think the fact that the state has taken the initiative makes a great statement about the progress Mississippi has made as a society," said Charles Sallis, a Millsaps College professor whose 1974 history book once was banned from Mississippi's schools for dealing too honestly with the state's racial past.
Sallis added, however: "A lot still has to be done."
The trial, which begins today and is expected to last several weeks, will be the third for Beckwith, a one-time fertilizer salesman whose fingerprint authorities say was on the sight of the hunting rifle that killed Evers on June 12, 1963. Two all-white juries in 1964 failed to reach verdicts.
Beckwith, now 73, has maintained that he was in his hometown of Greenwood when Evers was shot in the back in the driveway of his Jackson home.
"That's 93 miles away. It would have had to have been a mighty powerful rifle for me to have done it," said Beckwith, who claims the rifle was stolen from him.
Jury selection will take place in Panola County, a predominantly white county in northern Mississippi, where attorneys hope publicity about the case has not tainted the 500 potential jurors. Once a jury is picked, the case will be moved back to Jackson for testimony.
That testimony will take place in the same courtroom as the previous two trials held in 1964 - a year marked by the murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County. It was the "Freedom Summer," when hundreds of volunteers from the North and South set up programs designed to promote black voter registration.
Evers, the state NAACP field secretary, had championed voting rights and helped organize economic boycotts of businesses that discriminated.
"It's imperative, not just important, that we go on with this trial," said his widow, Myrlie Evers. "Justice has not been done in this case."
Myrlie Evers, who campaigned for years to have the case reopened, said a conviction would be important not only for Mississippi and the nation but "for me and my family. That night is like a movie that is on replay every day. I have not forgotten."
Court documents show prosecutors have subpoenaed at least 19 witnesses, including nine people who testified in the 1964 trials. Among the new witnesses are Peggy Morgan, whom lawyers claim Beckwith told in 1966 that he had killed Evers, and Delmar Dennis, a former Ku Klux Klansman who also claims Beckwith bragged about the slaying.
Preparation for the trial has not been without controversy.
Pamphlets supporting Beckwith have shown up on doorsteps in recent months, some stamped "Compliments of Byron De La Beckwith" and bearing his address in Signal Mountain, Tenn. Those pamphlets also included a flier asking for contributions and describing Beckwith as a "hero in war, a hero in peace."
Beckwith still preaches white supremacy and directs those interested in his past to read his biography, "Glory in Conflict."
Both Charlie Sallis and Myrlie Evers view the trial as symbolic for Mississippi.
"Mississippi has a chance to finally put this behind them," Myrlie Evers said. "They can say to the country and to the world that Mississippi has changed or they can say it's the same `old boys' network that has been its past."
Sallis said that while it would be difficult for prosecutors to reconstruct what happened three decades ago, "what we do know for a fact was that there was bias and prejudice working in the state at that time. It was a closed society."
by CNB