Mississippians, and he decided that they would be more likely to bargain with their “own Negroes,” than with a foreign, New York outfit. The group spearheaded the first known black economic boycott in the Delta, aimed at service stations with toilets for whites only. The campaign was simple and specific, summarized in the bumper sticker the group distributed: “Don’t Buy Gas Where You Can’t Use the Restroom.”
There was also a Mound Bayou chapter of the NAACP, and Medgar joined it. Through the NAACP and the Regional Council, Medgar met a group of veterans and hard-core activists who would be his allies for the rest of his life, including Aaron Henry, a pharmacist in Clarksdale and local NAACP chapter president, and Amzie Moore, a fearless businessman from Cleveland, Mississippi.
Medgar started out selling insurance policies in the town of Clarksdale. Later his beat included the rural areas, the plantations where few sharecroppers even knew what insurance was.
One of his closest colleagues was Thomas Moore, a tall, handsome young veteran and Mound Bayou native. Evers and Moore would often ride together to the big plantations to try to crack the insurance market out there. They also had another mission. They were recruiting for the NAACP, urging people to register to vote, and setting up new chapters across the Delta. Every working day in the summer of 1953 Moore and Evers dressed up in blue jeans and casual shirts and climbed into Medgar’s Mercury to head out into the cotton fields.
The roads in the Delta don’t seem to bend. They slice through the swamp flats like a child’s exercise drawing in perspective, where the shimmering pinpoint of infinity is the Mississippi River, unseen but felt in the distance. In the summer months the river spreads its hot, fetid air over the breezeless floodplain, engulfing everything with its smell and its presence. The sun pounds down on the fat black topsoil, the best in the world for growing cotton, built up with layers of silt from millennia of wild spring floods.
It was here, in the Delta, that Mississippi found its wealth while it perfected a system of slavery in a nominally free country. The system was called sharecropping.
Medgar Evers thought he knew what poverty was until he started working the plantations. But every time he went out into the Delta, he was astonished by the squalid, leaky shacks, barely big enough for chicken coops, where families of twelve might live.
Thomas Moore remembers the children wore handmade clothes and no shoes. They were dirty, and you could tell they were hungry. They didn’t talk much, just sat in the corner picking at their daily ration of hoecakes and greens, while the college-educated salesmen tried to sell their daddies insurance.
Evers and Moore had to be careful out there. They had to get permission to be out on the plantation, or they might get beaten up by some foreman. They talked their way onto the big spreads, like the huge King and Anderson plantation up near Clarksdale, by convincing the farm manager that it would be in his best interest for the sharecroppers to buy their own insurance. Then the planter wouldn’t have to bury them or pay their medical bills. It would be taken care of. This tactic usually worked. You had to outfox the man, use psychology against him. Evers taught Moore that you can’t sell anybody anything unless you convince him he needs it, that there’s something in it for him.
Evers also taught Moore some tricks for selling insurance. The sharecroppers were terribly superstitious; many of them believed in spirits. The young salesmen would use that knowledge. For instance, they would pick their mark and ask the neighbors all about him. That way when they came to his shack, they knew him by name, knew his children’s names, and knew other things about him. It got his attention. It was a way to make the sale, maybe $1.50 or $2.00 a week for the minimal health, life, and burial insurance. Burial
There was also a Mound Bayou chapter of the NAACP, and Medgar joined it. Through the NAACP and the Regional Council, Medgar met a group of veterans and hard-core activists who would be his allies for the rest of his life, including Aaron Henry, a pharmacist in Clarksdale and local NAACP chapter president, and Amzie Moore, a fearless businessman from Cleveland, Mississippi.
Medgar started out selling insurance policies in the town of Clarksdale. Later his beat included the rural areas, the plantations where few sharecroppers even knew what insurance was.
One of his closest colleagues was Thomas Moore, a tall, handsome young veteran and Mound Bayou native. Evers and Moore would often ride together to the big plantations to try to crack the insurance market out there. They also had another mission. They were recruiting for the NAACP, urging people to register to vote, and setting up new chapters across the Delta. Every working day in the summer of 1953 Moore and Evers dressed up in blue jeans and casual shirts and climbed into Medgar’s Mercury to head out into the cotton fields.
The roads in the Delta don’t seem to bend. They slice through the swamp flats like a child’s exercise drawing in perspective, where the shimmering pinpoint of infinity is the Mississippi River, unseen but felt in the distance. In the summer months the river spreads its hot, fetid air over the breezeless floodplain, engulfing everything with its smell and its presence. The sun pounds down on the fat black topsoil, the best in the world for growing cotton, built up with layers of silt from millennia of wild spring floods.
It was here, in the Delta, that Mississippi found its wealth while it perfected a system of slavery in a nominally free country. The system was called sharecropping.
Medgar Evers thought he knew what poverty was until he started working the plantations. But every time he went out into the Delta, he was astonished by the squalid, leaky shacks, barely big enough for chicken coops, where families of twelve might live.
Thomas Moore remembers the children wore handmade clothes and no shoes. They were dirty, and you could tell they were hungry. They didn’t talk much, just sat in the corner picking at their daily ration of hoecakes and greens, while the college-educated salesmen tried to sell their daddies insurance.
Evers and Moore had to be careful out there. They had to get permission to be out on the plantation, or they might get beaten up by some foreman. They talked their way onto the big spreads, like the huge King and Anderson plantation up near Clarksdale, by convincing the farm manager that it would be in his best interest for the sharecroppers to buy their own insurance. Then the planter wouldn’t have to bury them or pay their medical bills. It would be taken care of. This tactic usually worked. You had to outfox the man, use psychology against him. Evers taught Moore that you can’t sell anybody anything unless you convince him he needs it, that there’s something in it for him.
Evers also taught Moore some tricks for selling insurance. The sharecroppers were terribly superstitious; many of them believed in spirits. The young salesmen would use that knowledge. For instance, they would pick their mark and ask the neighbors all about him. That way when they came to his shack, they knew him by name, knew his children’s names, and knew other things about him. It got his attention. It was a way to make the sale, maybe $1.50 or $2.00 a week for the minimal health, life, and burial insurance. Burial
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