- Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith (
November 9 1920 ,Colusa, California –January 21 2001 ,Jackson, Mississippi ) was an Americanwhite supremacist and the convicted murderer ofcivil rights leaderMedgar Evers .Early life
Beckwith was born in
California , butorphan ed and raised inGreenwood, Mississippi from the age of five. He became an ardent supporter ofsegregation and joined theKu Klux Klan . [ [http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/refarticle.aspx?refid=761562317 Ku Klux Klan - MSN Encarta ] ] De La Beckwith was aMarine Corps veteran ofWorld War II , and was awarded theSilver Star . He had three turbulent marriages to the same woman and was diagnosed as a schizophrenic.Assassination of Medgar Evers
During the 1960s the Klan was involved in numerous acts of violence and
terrorism . Medgar Evers' assassination, onJune 12 ,1963 , inJackson, Mississippi , was another episode in the Klan's violent campaign againstracial integration andcivil rights forAfrican-American s.De La Beckwith was twice tried for murder in 1964. Both trials ended in
mistrial s with theall-white jury unable to reach a verdict. In the following years, he became a leader in thePhineas Priesthood , a branch of theChristian Identity movement known for espousing extreme white supremacist, anti-government, anti-gay , and anti-abortion ideologies.Imprisonment
A third trial in 1994, before a jury of eight African-American and four Caucasian jurors, ended with Beckwith being convicted of the murder of Evers. The conviction was based, in part, on new evidence proving that he had boasted of the killing at a Klan rally and to others over the three decades after the crime. The physical evidence was essentially the same as was used during the first two trials. The guilty verdict was subsequently appealed, but the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 1997. The court said the 31-year lapse between the ambush slaying and Mr. Beckwith's conviction did not deny him a fair trial.
Sentenced to
life imprisonment for murder, De La Beckwith died at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 2001 inJackson, Mississippi , aged 80. He had suffered fromheart disease , high blood pressure and other ailments.Fictional portrayals
The 1996 film "
Ghosts of Mississippi " tells the story of the murder and 1994 trial.James Woods portrayed De La Beckwith in an Academy Award-nominated performance.De La Beckwith was the subject of the 1963
Bob Dylan song "Only a Pawn in Their Game ", which deplores Evers' murder and the racist South, and dismisses De La Beckwith and his actions as a product of his environment.References
* David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, "T.R.M. Howard: Pragmatism over Strict Integrationist Ideology in the Mississippi Delta, 1942-1954" in Glenn Feldman, ed., "Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South" (2004 book), 68-95.
* Brown, Jennie. "Medgar Evers". Los Angeles: Melrose Square Pub. Co., 1994.
* John Dittmer, "Local People: the Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi" (1994 book).
* Evers, Myrlie B., and William Peters. "For Us, the Living." 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967; Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996.
* Jackson, James E. "At the funeral of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi: A Tribute in Tears and a Thrust for Freedom." New York: Publisher’s New Press, 1963.
* Massengill, Reed. "Portrait of a Racist: The Man Who Killed Medgar Evers?" New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
* Nossiter, Adam. "Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers." Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1994; Da Capo Press, 2002.
* Charles M. Payne, "I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle" (1995 book).
* Salter, John R. Jackson, "Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism." Foreword by R. Edwin King, Jr. Hicksville, N.Y.: Exposition Press, 1979.
* Scott, R. W. "Glory in Conflict: A Saga of Byron De La Beckwith." Camden, Arkansas: Camark Press, 1991.
* "Remembering Medgar Evers—For a New Generation: A Commemoration." Developed by the Civil Rights Research and Documentation Project, Afro-American Studies Program, The University of Mississippi. Oxford, MS: distributed by Heritage Publications in cooperation with the Mississippi Network for Black History and Heritage, 1988.
* Vollers, Maryanne. "Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, The Trials of Byron de la Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South." Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.
* "The New York Times", December 23, 1997ee also
*
List of assassins
*List of famous prison deaths Notes
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