Experience Of Long Memory: Mississippi And The Murder Of Medgar Evers Created By Adam Nossiter File PDF

don't think Medgar Evers is a terribly wellknown figure today I know him best from the Bob Dylan song "Only a Pawn in Their Game" but this book captures the racial life of the Mississippi that countenanced his assassination in, as well as the Mississippi that finally brought his killer to justice in.
It offers a good look at how race in the Deep South both was and is, A very thorough history of the state of Mississippi during the years of the Civil Rights movement, The book is about Medgar Evers and so much more! This was not what I had been expecting, There was very little information on the trials of the murderer, Significant portions of the book made little to no mention of Evers, I thought it could have been much better, It was a grind to get through, I skimmed over the lastpages or so to keep from disliking it so much that I never pick up a book on this subject again.
I felt like it was more of a biography of everyone involved in the cases and very little to do with the victim and the re prosecution of the suspect.
I would not recommend this if you are looking for a book about Evers, This was a good one but not absolutely great, I was a little thrown by all the color and life in the portrait of Byron De La Beckwith a fanatical, racist murderer contrasted against the flat, unfeeling sketch of his victim, Medgar Evers, supposedly the centerpiece of the story.
I also found the author's writing style a little roundabout and disinclined at times to get to the point.
But I do know a great deal more about this case than I did before, I'll say that. Although the book wasnt what I was expecting, it nevertheless fulfilled much of what I was hoping for, I was expecting a blow by blow story of the various trials of Byron de la Beckwith for the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, but the author presented things in informational hunks Evers, the prosecutors, de la Beckwith, etc.
The author is best in describing the history of the times and worst when he inserts himself in the narrative and when he stereotypes all Southerners as generalizing here dull, fat and shambling, but that is typical of many writers who didnt grow up in the South.
Nevertheless, I appreciated the history of the moment within its larger context,
Mississippi GoddamnNina Simone

If you read about the Civil Rights movement for any length of time, some horrific event that happened in Mississippi eventually pops up.
From the murder ofyoung civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, to the brutal murder ofyear old Emmet Till, to perhaps the most notorious of all Mississippi murders, that of Medgar Evers, shot in the back as he walked up his driveway.

It is ostensibly that story which is told here in Adam Nossiters “Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evans”.

It is Everss story, It is the story of his assassin, Byron De La Beckwith, It is the story of Everss brother Charles, It is the story of politicians, businessmen, and everyday people come and gone whose lives were and continue to be inalterably changed by the events of that day.
These are the memories of the people and events in Everss orbit,
Whose memory though Any traumatic event such as this one inevitable create unreliable memories as time passes, Was MLK attempting to build a colorblind society Was Malcom X renouncing violence toward the end of his

life Was Richard Nixon really not as bad as we once thought
In the same way Evers, for those who remember him, have turned him into a demigod of sorts.
This he was not. He was not on the front lines of any large protests, He generally disapproved of such activity in favor of NAACP style legal challenges, He was not what one would call in the Civil Rights movement, a radical,
What he was however was a lone soul, tirelessly walking the backwoods of backwoods in rural Mississippi attempting to get Black Mississippians to register to vote with very little support from anyone else and at constant risk to his life.
Ultimately there is no need to romanticize Evers or make him into something he was not, as what he was was a beacon of courage to thousands of disenfranchised people who he gave a voice to.
Enough of a force of personality to be murdered by the contemptible Byron De La Beckwith,
In something that could only occur in Mississippi, Beckwith would be the beneficiary of two hung juries though never acquited and shamelessly feted by White Mississippians for years after the act including the odious governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett, coming to one of his trials and shaking his hand in front of the jurors.
And yet Beckwiths fame would be somewhat fleeting, As Mississippi started to feel shame never enough however over its past and its reputation around the country as a hotbed for racists, Beckwith would become ostracized, Blacks would begin to be represented in government, and change slowly began to be on the march, culminating perhaps in a third trial for the elderly Beckwith in the earlys where he was finally convicted.

This is the story of Mississippi, For long stretches of its history, it was not a place where justice dared to rear its head, And yet Im reminded of the words of MLK when I feel like things are beyond hope for some places: “The arc of history is long, and it bends toward justice”.

The history is well known: On June,, Mississippi's courageous NAACP chief, Medgar Evers, was gunned down by white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith.
Tried twice by allwhite juries, Beckwith escaped conviction for three decades, But then Mississippi began to confront its tormented past, And in thes, when Beckwith was sent to jail by a crusading young prosecutor, the family of Medgar Evers finally got justice.
Hailed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the Lillian Smith Award, Of Long Memory reveals how this remarkable reversal took place.
Nossiter uses the tools of memory, history, and reportageand the clear vantage point of an outsider, a Northernerto portray an entire state quite literally summoning up its ghosts.
A new epilogue discusses other civil rights cases now being reconsidered, and skillfully shows how the South is finding a way to create justice where none had existed before.
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