America, Countries

Still only a pawn in their game

And as we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington it is worth reflecting on power… that we are still only a pawn in their game.

And that it is barely two and a half years since a very different march on Washington, an attempted coup.

When five people lost their lives.

The King and I: With Dr King in DC

If Dr Martin Luther King had a dream back then, America had a nightmare that day.

Alongside Dr King in the capital on August 28, 1963, were a line of Civil Rights luminaries and protest musicians.

Including Bob Dylan who sang the Medgar Evers tribute Only A Pawn In Their Game.

And Joan Baez who led the chorus of We shall overcome.

The Mississippi King

Today’s protests: And Black Lives Matter

Evers, of course, should have been up there alongside Dr King at the Lincoln Memorial, before the quarter of a million flanking the Reflecting Pool.

But he had been shot down just two months before in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

MLK: A true champion

Five years later Dr King would be dead too.

Evers’ death would ignite the Movement.

And you can be part of a living, growing movement with those who have curated Medgar’s house for future generations.

Or more precisely the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.

Myrlie’s story

Crowdpleaser: Myrlie in Jackson

Myrlie, Medgar’s devoted wife, is as much part of the Evers story as the king of Mississippi.

And still at 90 she is championing the struggle which is still real and still now.

And still unfinished as evidenced by the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial on the National Mall.

Not even started though is the statue to Medgar Evers because we are still only a pawn in their game.

 

 

America, Countries

Remember Mississippi’s Man for Evers

Sixty years ago this year was born one of the pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement… we’ll remember Mississippi’s Man for Evers.

Medgar Evers was at the vanguard of the fight for equal rights but was mowed down in his driveway in Jackson in 1963.

Which you can see for yourself at his house in the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.

You’ll notice that Myrlie is honoured too in the naming of the national monument.

Because 2332 Margaret W Alexander Drive was her house.

A place of pilgrimage: The Evers house

Where she would take protection with their three children from the threat to theirs and Medgar’s lives.

It would appear an insignificant family bungalow unless you knew it were Medgar and Myrlie’s home.

But you get a chill sense of what happened here when Medgar unloaded his posters in the carport.

Said to be the only place the gunman, white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith Jr could have shot him.

The trail leads here

You tell ’em: Myrlie Evers

Their home was, and still is, a place of pilgrimage for those on the Civil Rights Trail  but back in 2018 when we visited as part of MLK50 it had yet to receive that honour.

MLK50 was, of course, the 50th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King‘s assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.

With its climax the opening of the Two Museums, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

Myrlie trumps the Donald

Thumbs-up: With ‘The Donald’

Which then-President Donald Trump made a personal visit to back in 2018 amid some dissent from his opponents.

With our party and the other invited guests treated to Myrlie Evers-Williams’ addresses to the gathered numbers.

And those lucky few, myself included, who managed to gain a private audience with Myrlie later hearing her speak passionately of her thoughts on his disruptionist rule.

A true great: Medgar Evers

What took place since then and the recognition of the home as a national monument by Donald Trump we don’t know.

But having met the force of nature that is Myrlie Evers I should imagine that he might have found it difficult to say no to the Marvellous Myrlie.

All of which we’ll be reflecting on as we honour and will always remember Mississippi’s Man for Evers and his indomitable Myrlie.

And point you in the direction of their home while also paying tribute to his great friend Martin Luther King in Memphis.