do something as foolish as get married. Why did he need to? He could have any girl he wanted. What about Brazil? Charles ripped and tore at Medgar over this “mistake.” But Medgar loved Myrlie, and he wouldn’t be talked out of the marriage. Charles never forgave Myrlie for marrying his brother and ruining all his plans for them.
The formal portrait of the bride and groom on their wedding night belies the turmoil backstage. The photograph shows a handsome, beaming couple posed before a display of ferns and candles. Medgar wears a dark, wide-lapeled tuxedo and a white boutonniere. Myrlie wears a simple, ankle-length white tulle gown. Her illusion veil is swept back from her face. The newlyweds lean together, smiling, but clutch each other’s arms as if to keep from falling.
All Myrlie wanted was an ordinary life, the kind that would fit into Medgar’s suburban dream house. She wanted a decent income and kids and her husband working nine to five and coming home to her in the evenings. She wanted to get out of Mississippi, maybe move to Chicago, where she could finish school.
But the more Medgar was away from Mississippi, the more he wanted to come home. There was no other place for him. And the safe middle-class life would never satisfy him.
Myrlie and Medgar finished the school year at Alcorn. Medgar graduated that July. He was recruited to work for the Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company, an enterprise owned and operated by a black man. Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Mason “T. R. M.” Howard of Mound Bayou, Mississippi.
To most travelers, Mound Bayou was just an eye-blink traffic stop on Highway 61, just north of Cleveland in the heart of the Delta. But Mound Bayou had a unique distinction in Mississippi. It was the only place where blacks founded, settled, and still governed their own town. It was where Medgar and Myrlie Evers made their first home together in the sweltering summer of 1952.
Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 in a lowland wilderness swamp as an experimental all-black community.
In 1940, when a newspaperman named Hodding Carter, Jr., visited Mound Bayou while researching a book about the lower Mississippi, there were about one thousand residents. The town was a shabby collection of buildings with twenty-four stores, three groceries, five churches, a high school and grammar school, and precisely enough professionals to keep the town self-sufficient: a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, and a pharmacist. At the north end of town a forty-bed hospital was being built with funds donated by a black philanthropical organization called The Knights and Daughters of Tabor.
By 1952, there were about thirteen hundred people within the town limits. Mound Bayou was a safe haven for Mississippi blacks. Crime was low, and there was little white harassment at the time. But it was a dull town, self-conscious and staid.
Myrlie Evers hated it. During the day she worked as a secretary in the Magnolia Mutual office. Medgar usually came home late from work, and there was little entertainment in town. The picture show was a joke, there was nothing new to read. There was no television.
Medgar Evers didn’t notice it was boring in Mound Bayou. He was completely absorbed in this new world.
Dr. Howard became Medgar’s mentor. Howard was rich by anyone’s standards. He owned hundreds of acres of rich Delta land. He lived in a nice brick house outside of town. Howard was portly, light-skinned, bespectacled and outspoken. He had flashy, almost effete tastes. He rode around in a red Buick convertible and had a fondness for skeet shooting and gentlemanly blood sports such as quail hunting. Medgar, who was an avid hunter, fit right into Howard’s social arena.
Howard was ahead of his time in many ways. He founded the Delta-based Regional Council of Negro Leadership with a handful of other prominent businessmen. It was a homegrown lobby group, a sort of grassroots NAACP. Howard recognized the native xenophobia of white
The formal portrait of the bride and groom on their wedding night belies the turmoil backstage. The photograph shows a handsome, beaming couple posed before a display of ferns and candles. Medgar wears a dark, wide-lapeled tuxedo and a white boutonniere. Myrlie wears a simple, ankle-length white tulle gown. Her illusion veil is swept back from her face. The newlyweds lean together, smiling, but clutch each other’s arms as if to keep from falling.
All Myrlie wanted was an ordinary life, the kind that would fit into Medgar’s suburban dream house. She wanted a decent income and kids and her husband working nine to five and coming home to her in the evenings. She wanted to get out of Mississippi, maybe move to Chicago, where she could finish school.
But the more Medgar was away from Mississippi, the more he wanted to come home. There was no other place for him. And the safe middle-class life would never satisfy him.
Myrlie and Medgar finished the school year at Alcorn. Medgar graduated that July. He was recruited to work for the Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company, an enterprise owned and operated by a black man. Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Mason “T. R. M.” Howard of Mound Bayou, Mississippi.
To most travelers, Mound Bayou was just an eye-blink traffic stop on Highway 61, just north of Cleveland in the heart of the Delta. But Mound Bayou had a unique distinction in Mississippi. It was the only place where blacks founded, settled, and still governed their own town. It was where Medgar and Myrlie Evers made their first home together in the sweltering summer of 1952.
Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 in a lowland wilderness swamp as an experimental all-black community.
In 1940, when a newspaperman named Hodding Carter, Jr., visited Mound Bayou while researching a book about the lower Mississippi, there were about one thousand residents. The town was a shabby collection of buildings with twenty-four stores, three groceries, five churches, a high school and grammar school, and precisely enough professionals to keep the town self-sufficient: a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, and a pharmacist. At the north end of town a forty-bed hospital was being built with funds donated by a black philanthropical organization called The Knights and Daughters of Tabor.
By 1952, there were about thirteen hundred people within the town limits. Mound Bayou was a safe haven for Mississippi blacks. Crime was low, and there was little white harassment at the time. But it was a dull town, self-conscious and staid.
Myrlie Evers hated it. During the day she worked as a secretary in the Magnolia Mutual office. Medgar usually came home late from work, and there was little entertainment in town. The picture show was a joke, there was nothing new to read. There was no television.
Medgar Evers didn’t notice it was boring in Mound Bayou. He was completely absorbed in this new world.
Dr. Howard became Medgar’s mentor. Howard was rich by anyone’s standards. He owned hundreds of acres of rich Delta land. He lived in a nice brick house outside of town. Howard was portly, light-skinned, bespectacled and outspoken. He had flashy, almost effete tastes. He rode around in a red Buick convertible and had a fondness for skeet shooting and gentlemanly blood sports such as quail hunting. Medgar, who was an avid hunter, fit right into Howard’s social arena.
Howard was ahead of his time in many ways. He founded the Delta-based Regional Council of Negro Leadership with a handful of other prominent businessmen. It was a homegrown lobby group, a sort of grassroots NAACP. Howard recognized the native xenophobia of white
Similar Books
