Why I Live In Mississippi

Behind every name, there is a story. The ones we recall are lucky enough to be written down and repeated; these narratives resonate with others and through continued storytelling, people determine the history of our past. 2017 finds us as the chosen ones to transcribe what the future will know about our time and the people who laid the groundwork for the lives of those to come. As William Faulkner succinctly explains, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Just after midnight on June 12, fifty-four years ago, a mother and her three young children heard a car pull into their driveway followed by the unique sound that only one car's motor made. For the Evers family, this daily repetition of sound meant that Daddy was home from work and the family could breathe a small sigh of relief. However, instead of hearing the opening of the screen door and the voice of their father, the next sound they heard was a bullet firing from a rifle and entering their daddy's back.

Bobby Delaughter, the trailblazer Assistant District Attorney for Hinds County who tirelessly worked for that father's justice, wrote a book detailing the 1994 trial that after two previous attempts, finally convicted Byron De La Beckwith for pulling the trigger that Mississippi summer night. In Delaughter's Never Too Late, Myrlie Evers's testimony details the moments after the shot was fired. "And the children fell to the floor as he (Medgar) had taught them to do. The baby was on the bed with me, and I bolted up and ran to the door, and there was Medgar at the steps with the keys in his hand." (Page 238) The shot should have immediately stopped him in his tracks but he fought as hard as he could for every last step he took to reach his family waiting inside. Myrlie, his wife, spent countless hours after his death trying to remove the bloodstains from their carport. Their youngest son did not speak for months after seeing his father on the ground covered in a pool of his own blood, breathing his final breaths.

"Why do I live in Mississippi? The state is beautiful, it is home, I love it here. A man's state is like his house. If it has defects, he tries to remedy them. That's what my job is here. Why do I live in Mississippi? I live here to better it for my wife and kids, and for all the wives and all the kids who expect and deserve something better than what they are getting from life." —Medgar Evers, "Why I Live in Mississippi," Ebony Magazine, September 1963

The Gap in Mississippi's Story

Our Magnolia State birthed Willie Morris, Eudora Welty, and William Faulkner. The world learns from our local literary giants and in the process, our neighbors form an attachment to Mississippi; albeit, a quaint interpretation of a story by a singular author. We are renowned for our writing, and the words of our people are sought out far and wide.

These narratives resonate for a reason.

Mississippi writers portray the human condition in the most fundamental ways. While the themes of our stories are told through slavery, small town gossip, oppression and agriculture, they evoke lessons of compassion, tradition, the strength of family, and growth. My only childhood glimpse into the novels of my state was through the veil of a few tears while watching the film version of My Dog Skip, a classic Mississippi narrative told through Morris’ childhood perspective. It wasn't until my days at Millsaps College, a liberal arts oasis in Jackson, that I read the works of Welty and Faulkner with astonishment. Over two decades of standing on the same Yazoo Clay as these heroes and not once had I known to idolize them. My English Studies up to that point had focused on The Scarlet Letter and Shakespeare. No time for the narratives of my homeland. It took a professor from Massachusetts and a few required electives for me to see the artistry created in my own backyard.

This knowledge was a gateway to my own interpretation of my home and how our story has been shaped. The reason for the Civil War is something that is still debated on in our state because the soil of the Mississippi Delta is the richest there is and the pain of our past mistakes is just as deep.

Once Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery, we were forced to blame those "Northern Outsiders" for meddling in our way of life. When Brown v. Board of Education provided our children with communal academics, once again, we shifted the blame on those that have no business telling us how to teach our youth. Freedom Summer saw a swarm of Federal Investigators asking questions that didn't concern them; intruders that should have just abandoned those three men. They had probably already driven back North by then anyhow.

It is astonishing that those who needed to control a system of oppression in order to have an identity were always so eager to say they too were being oppressed by a bigger, more powerful owner: the rest of the country. America owns our narrative, and its no one's fault but our own. Rather than confronting the mistakes of our past, we tuck them under the rug and continue on with the same flawed mentality. This method is understandable because unrest such as ours is so emotionally severe that our brains protect us from analysis. Similar to traumatic situations, the biases and social norms of our culture become weaved into our automatic tendencies and never once contemplated.

Our species relies on stories for both survival and emotional purposes. Narratives confirm our thought processes and they add structure to the chaos of daily existence. Without structure, and a path, there is no future; just quick schemes to provide a temporary windfall of prosperity. Once the well runs dry, we blame the oppressor: everyone else. Our education system resides at the bottom of annual statistics; stuck in an eternal quicksand. Is it the fault of the other 49 states for having superior academics?

As often said, the children are our future. As a child, I remember history class quite well. I don't remember a large portion of the required curriculum of my Mississippi Public Schooling, but I must have learned it since I made high grades. There's a reason why I can't immediately recall the leaders of the Boston Tea Party; I never needed this story to get through a disparate situation. Yes, unreasonable tariffs and taxes are something I am fundamentally opposed to, but this tale from our story is not at the forefront of daily life in Mississippi. It's obvious that we are teaching our youth irrelevant information: distant anecdotes to fill the void of our recent narrative since we don't own a proper one.

Alec Baldwin and Whoopie Goldberg taught me what my relevant history is as a lifelong resident of Jackson, MS.

Medgar Evers was always a name I heard in passing; those names we don't connect with but somehow continue to be mentioned along with their contemporaries. These names are important, but not worthy enough of a story to be shared with others; mere technicalities for municipal works and minor recognitions.

The airport in Jackson is named after Medgar and while we are no LAX, it serves a steady influx of our local residents. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of those coming off of the next Delta arrival didn't know the story behind the name atop their ticket. Some may stutter out a civil rights term such as leader or activist but that will likely end their response. While I have Castle Rock Entertainment's Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) to thank for my enlightened perspective on Medgar and his peaceful persistence, not everyone finds themselves in the depths of a 90s film phase. Also, if our citizens are not able to own their narrative, the likelihood of them seeking out Hollywood's version is low.

There's a reason we have yet to define our story. With a past like ours, who would want to reconcile? What person would want to confront the decades of compiled guilt they have due to standing by, or acting in, the inhumane violence Whites inflicted on "Negroes" daily? Ignorance may be blissful, but it sure as hell deters progress. Ghosts of Mississippi was a better history book than my 12 years of public education curriculum. If it weren't for the efforts of a top-billing cast, the $36 million funded to create the film, and the dedicated effort of Hollywood to tell Medgar's story on screens throughout the land, I wouldn't have any grasp of who Medgar Evers was or why I should even care.

For around three years now, I have been attached to Medgar Evers's home; it's my Mecca of sorts. Without Alec Baldwin portraying Bobby Delaughter, I wouldn't have this location as a point of personal clarity; my place of perspective. A couple weeks ago, I watched Ghosts of Mississippi for the second time. I have been struggling to craft my narrative to the daily fight of the Evers family because I could not remember why or how I first encountered their story. However, when I saw Bobby Delaughter turn onto Medgar Evers Boulevard after receiving a residential bomb threat by a backwards coward, I immediately realized that scene told me to seek out this space. It took me three years of processing the significance Evers has had on our community, and I continue to find myself in awe at the impact of his story.

When Bobby drives to 2332 Margaret Alexander Drive, it is in the middle of the night. He pulls up to the home, near the haunted driveway of a pointless murder and envisions the life of an Evers family before June 12, 1963. So, a few weeks after I first watched this scene, I copied the film script to a tee. I might have brought a friend to tag along, but nonetheless, I waited until the sun had long set to pull up to Delaughter's spot and sat in my parked car while humming along with my chosen soundtrack of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. My first visit was more of a Hollywood tour experience and not at all what it would become to be. Ghosts of Mississippi drove me there, but I never walked in until three years later.

During my journey of understanding what Medgar Evers means to me, I made numerous trips to the historic home; each trip at night, each occasion the same as the others. I brought different people varying from close friends to newfound acquaintances. If you were nearby when the idea was sparked, you were convinced to tag along and learn about this house. Through my continued googling of the directions to this ranch style abode, I always scrolled past the site for scheduling a tour. My excuse was that the house should be open throughout the day, accessible when I decide to check in. This was a fallacy; I was not prepared to truly know the story of Medgar Evers and I definitely could not fathom walking inside that home. The site was, in my mind, off limits; only accessible from the road, only could be viewed the same way I saw Alec Baldwin do it.

May 19, 2017, I followed Minnie Watson up the stairs that Medgar viewed as he laid on the concrete driveway seeing his wife and children beg him to get up and walk inside. Because for them, the moment must have been too immediate, a malleable mistake and one that they prayed could be erased altogether.

After we entered the home, Minnie Watson, the most informed tour guide I have ever encountered, provided an account of not only the Evers story but also of the invaluable information I did not know I needed to hear about the moments that once filled those walls. Minnie first met Medgar when he came to Campbell College, and in that moment she began her search for the $5 fee to register with the NAACP. Minnie has come a long way since that fundamental $5 purchase, but one thing remains intact: Medgar's influence guides her life's work. She filled my soul with stories of Myrlie sliding the refrigerator to cover the back door for protection and of her asking why the family's beds were lifted off of the ground when she came back to see what Hollywood's magic had recreated of her former life. They had placed their mattresses on the floor so they could sleep below the elevated bedroom windows' risk of gunfire.

Once Minnie completed her narrative of the home and the family it held, she said we were free to roam through the three bedrooms and one bathroom; we could walk to the exact place where the bullet shot through a wall and then we could even see the kitchen counter where it landed. I did not know what to do with myself. Minnie's tour had unlocked the story behind my legend of a man that I had held to such an idolized, mythical status. To walk through the hallway where Medgar stepped through every day to brush his teeth, eat supper, go to sleep, and leave for work, was to see life through his domestic view. To see the picture of Medgar and Myrlie's wedding day in their bedroom was to see the same image as my parent's display.

I waited three years to walk inside that house, to see the story of a man rather than simply pretending that copying Alec Baldwin was enough for me to identify with the person who "made the ultimate sacrifice." Minnie Watson said this with certainty when I asked what the one thing she wanted people to take away from her tours. Every conversation I have had with local Evers storytellers always leads to the sad fact that those from other parts of the globe know more about Medgar than our community does. As my conversation with Minnie reached this inevitable topic, she recalled a moment that captures the strange juxtaposition of Mississippi's relationship with the man that gave us the ultimate gift: a home where humanity is allowed to flow free from the restraints of our recent past.

"A van drove up one day when I was there with a visitors bureau group and these guys got out with African garb on. It was about four or five of them and some of them came in. After, I heard a noise outside. One of the guys never came into the house. He was kneeling on the steps and he said 'this is the last thing on my bucket list.' Those of us who saw him, it did something to us. I know it did something to me. This man traveled all of these miles and he said that he was satisfied because it was the last thing on his bucket list. Never came into the house, kneeled on the steps and then walked the backyard."

The backyard features a towering tree that Medgar planted when they first arrived at their home in 1956. The location has encountered years of abandonment, multiple renters, and a renewal through the efforts of Castle Rock Entertainment and Tougaloo College. Throughout each of these chapters, that tree has continued to grow, little by little everyday, just as the progress Medgar gave his life for. The quote that is most often cited when people mention Medgar Evers is "you can kill a man but you can't kill an idea." Medgar understood that the only way for your vision to grow is through the sewing of seeds and the nurturing of their growth. With proper care and dedicated tending, anything, from a tree to an idea, can expand to become something bigger than you can imagine.

Medgar fought to be the first African-American to be featured on WLBT and this feat is still awe-inspiring. Medgar's 17 minutes on our local broadcasting station was over 1,000 seconds more than any other African American had been seen on the televisions in each local home. Prior to his amazing feat, celebrities even as unforgettable as Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. were not allowed to be broadcast and instead replaced with a "black-out" on the screen. However, through a peaceful perseverance, one rooted in respect and understanding of the human condition, Evers negotiated for his ability to share his perspective with a white community who likely had never heard it before. Through the use of a common household medium, Evers delivered an olive branch to those who helped guide the sea of oppression the African American community was forced to abide by.

Our species also has a deep desire to belong. This is rooted in our need for a tribe, a community to help us gather our food and protect us from potential predators. While this is a survival trait, the need to belong also manifests in our souls. We need to share our emotional convictions and truths with others. When this bond is used for social good, movements happen, wars cease, peace ensues, civil rights are granted. When this need for belonging is rooted in negative, ignorant emotions, wars begin, injustice reigns, and civil liberties are stolen from others.

Ghosts of Mississippi may spend a majority of the reel in the early 90s but Medgar's spirit permeates the entirety. This is more than just the phenomena that is the movie medium however; he was such an infallible soul and souls like this never die, but instead, they multiply and carry on in the hearts and mentalities of those they touched.

Each member of our community was positively influenced by Evers's efforts, even if a disparate segment believes otherwise. Any challenge worth doing is going to be difficult. Hard work yields big rewards. Jackson finds herself neglected because the easy way out is through an exit off of I-55 to a neighboring county existence.

My goal for my hometown of Jackson, that endearing, beautiful, stubborn part of my soul, is for our citizens to come together to unlock the door to our gem of a Capitol city's success. I believe the only way to achieve this is through the telling of our past stories, the learning of lessons from our narrative and then the building upon our history to reach our full potential.

We need Medgar Evers's story now more than ever because his life is an example of devotion. He spent his days with a singular, passionate vision to achieve the goal of his hard work. 54 years later, it is apparent that his devotion paid off. In Never Too Late, Delaughter asks Myrlie Evers to provide the trial's jurors context of what Medgar was trying to achieve. "There were a number of things that Medgar was trying to do. One was the integration of schools. Another was opening up swimming pools or being able to go to restaurants; to use the public libraries; to be able to go to department stores and try on clothes, shoes, and hats; to be called by name instead of 'boy' or 'girl'; to have courtesy titles of 'Mr.' or 'Mrs.'; something as simple as having school-crossing guards for the children at the black schools." (237). His checklist seems completed. Each of these objectives is fundamental and yet I never thought to wonder who sewed the seeds.

My writing hero, Joan Didion, sums up storytelling: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." My purpose for writing this piece on the life of Medgar and its absence in our conversation isn't to ensure a discussion on civil rights, race relation, or white guilt. I tell this tale to provide an anecdote of the life of a Jacksonian so that we can know his story, retain and understand its significance, and find a lesson from this knowledge. I ask for each of you to build on Evers's example by finding a purpose that inspires you, something bigger than yourself.

Take this cause and let it consume you so that we add to the number of positive stories within Jackson's anthology because change doesn't happen suddenly, on a whim. No, change happens over time. Our city did not lose her narrative through the story of one person, but it did begin with one. Singular stories build narratives, archetypes for others to replicate out of generic design and a lack of creativity. If you look for the bad, you will find it. If you find the beauty in your backyard, then share it. Your story will build upon itself and others will find the beauty in their own story, and sooner, rather than later, Jackson will spread with optimism; a wildfire of passion and innovation will change our landscape and success will reignite our community.