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

1962 . Around this time violence erupted at Ole Miss due to the admission of
James Meredith to the University. Evers greeted Salter at the door with a weapon .
Upon entering the house, Salter observed "a half dozen guns in the kitchen and
living room ." A week before his fatal shooting, when he was awakened by the
sound of passing cars, Medgar would vault from bed and snatch one of his many
rifles to respond to suspected assassins . Myrlie Evers also slept with a small
revolver on the nightstand of her bed . The Evers had good reason to believe the
family was in danger. They not only received threatening phone calls and mail,
but a firebomb was tossed at their home in the spring of 1963 . Fearing attack by
nightriders, the Evers three children were instructed to hit the floor in times of
emergency. The Evers also purchased a German shepherd for protection.'
Evers abandoned his advocacy and organizing of the Mississippi Mau
Mau, but he was never an advocate of nonviolence . In 1961, activists of the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) were the first organizers to
advocate and practice nonviolent direct action (as such) in Mississippi . Evers
never publicly disavowed nonviolence . At the same time, Evers would privately
express his disagreement with the philosophy of nonviolence to SNCC organizer ,,
One of the early SNCC activists in Mississippi, MacArthur Cotton, often traveled
with Medgar in the early 1960's . Cotton reflecting on his jaunts with Medgar,
around the state, commented "Medgar used to carry a gun . . .He always talked
about how crazy we was, talking about nonviolence ."1°
Unfortunately the precautions and defenses practiced by Medgar and his
family and comrades could not save him from the bullet of an assassin, Byron D%-
La Beckwith ." After an NAACP mass meeting in Jackson June 11, 1963, MedL: .tr