50th anniversary of Medgar Evers' broadcasting milestone

[mahatmakanejeeves]

50th anniversary of Medgar Evers' broadcasting milestone

There's a video at the site, but I don't know how to link to it.

May 19, 2013 6:58 PM

(CBS News) JACKSON, Miss. - In the early 1960s, as Medgar Evers was becoming better known nationally as a civil rights leader in Mississippi, he found himself shut out of local television newscasts in his hometown and the state capital, Jackson.
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Finally, Evers was granted time to respond, on May 20, 1963. He spoke for 17 minutes, beginning by telling his audience he was as an U.S. Army veteran who fought fascism and Nazism in Europe during World War II. He talked about a 40 percent black city of 150,000 residents that had no black police officers, firefighters, or clerks. He called for a black man being able to "register and vote without special handicaps imposed on him" and "more jobs above the menial level in stores where he spends his money."
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Tape recordings of viewer calls to WLBT, preserved at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History vividly depict the irate reactions of many white viewers who laced their comments with racist epithets.
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Less than one month after Evers' appearance on WLBT, he was assassinated, the very night President John Kennedy gave a nationally televised speech promoting his civil rights agenda. On June 12, 1963, after pulling his car into his driveway, Evers was struck in the back by a single rifle bullet fired from the bushes across the street. His wife and children were inside the home and heard the fatal shot.