Eye for an Eye: The Role of Armed Resistance ... - Freedom Archives

he refused to persuade the thirty recently registered Blacks of Humpherys County
to remove their names from the rolls . While Lee was driving down a Belzoni
street, a car pulled along side of his, firing shots . Lee's car weaved on a dirt road
and crashed into a shack . While shotgun blasts tore away the lower left side and
jawbone of his face, Lee managed to pull himself from the wreckage . He was
assisted by two Black cab drivers who happened to be on the scene, but died on
the way to the hospital . Despite pressure from U.S . Representative Charles Diggs
from Mississippi, the national leadership of the NAACP, and the American Civil
Liberties Union, Movement activists and the Lee family felt the Federal Justice
Department and local authorities never really pursued finding the assassins of
Lee . Later that November, Gus Courts was also shot in Belzoni . Courts and his
family later moved to Chicago . Many began to believe the Citizen's Council's list
was a "hit list.""
In this environment Evers and other NAACP activists realized they had to
rely on their own resou-cs to protect themselves . Evers was a known and tar-
geted activist throughout the state . Most of Evers' work was in the field driving
all over the state of Mississippi . In cities and rural places all over the state
Everswas helping to organize new chapters or strengthening existing ones, and
investigating atrocities . Due to his understanding that he could not rely on local,
state, or Federal law enforcement for protection, wherever Evers went he was
armed . Ruby Hurley spent many days with Evers driving on Mississippi roads
investigating violations of civil and human rights . Hurley, who was uncomfortable
about Medgar's gun toting, commented "(M)any times when Medgar and I would
drive together, Medgar would tell about carrying his gun . . . .He used to sit on it,