When Medgar Evers applied to the then-segregated University of Mississippi Law School in February 1954, he did so at a crucial moment in American history. Three months later, in May, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education struck down state-sponsored segregation, stating that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." The school’s refusal to admit Evers drew the interest of the NAACP and ultimately became the epicenter of its historic campaign to desegregate the school.
The Brown v. Board of Education ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory for the civil rights movement, but the South was not ready to accept the change. The state governments of Texas, Arkansas, Florida and Alabama actively fought the decision, with some politicians physically blocking African American students’ entry into high schools and universities, moving aside only when confronted with military officers sent by the federal government to enforce the law. The entrenched racism of the South came into conflict with the rest of the country, creating a sense for African Americans that they would have to fight for the rights that had, legally, already been granted to them.
Evers was an active public figure, conducting well-publicized investigations into race-based injustices being perpetrated in the South, such as the unprosecuted murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till. This limelight brought numerous death threats and attempts on his life. On June 12, 1963, just hours after President John F. Kennedy's historic Civil Rights Address, Evers was shot in the back outside his home by a white supremacist. While his death was undoubtedly a tragic loss, some