James Charles Evers (September 11, 1922July 22, 2020) was an American civil rights activist, businessman, radio personality, and politician. Evers was known for his role in the civil rights movement along with his younger brother Medgar Evers. After serving in World War II, Evers began his career as a disc jockey at WHOC in Philadelphia, Mississippi. In 1954, he was made the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) State Voter Registration chairman. After his brother's assassination in 1963, Evers took over his position as field director of the NAACP in Mississippi. In this role, he organized and led many demonstrations for the rights of African Americans.
In 1969, Evers was named "Man of the Year" by the NAACP. On June 3, 1969, Evers was elected in Fayette, Mississippi, as the first African-American mayor of a biracial town in Mississippi since the Reconstruction era, following passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which enforced constitutional rights for citizens.
At the time of Evers's election as mayor, the town of Fayette had a population of 1,600 of which 75% was African-American and almost 25% white; the white officers on the Fayette city police "resigned rather than work under a black administration," according to the Associated Press. Evers told reporters "I guess we will just have to operate with an all-black police department for the present. But I am still looking for some whites to join us in helping Fayette grow." Evers then outlawed the carrying of firearms within city limits."A new day dawns in the Old South", Miami News, July 7, 1969, p1
He ran for governor in 1971 and the United States Senate in 1978, both times as an independent candidate. In 1989, Evers was defeated for re-election after serving sixteen years as mayor. In his later life, he became a Republican, endorsing Ronald Reagan in 1980, and more recently Donald Trump in 2016. This diversity in party affiliations throughout his life was reflected in his fostering of friendships with people from a variety of backgrounds, as well as his advising of politicians from across the political spectrum. After his political career ended, he returned to radio and hosted his own show, Let's Talk. In 2017, Evers was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame for his contributions to the music industry.
Early life and education Charles Evers was born in Decatur, Mississippi, on September 11, 1922, to James Evers, a laborer, and Jesse Wright Evers, a maid. He was the eldest of four children; Medgar Evers was his younger brother. He attended segregated public schools, which were typically underfunded in Mississippi following the exclusion of African Americans from the political system by disenfranchisement after 1890. Evers graduated from Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi.
Career Business activities During World War II, Charles and Medgar Evers both served in the United States Army. Charles fell in love with a Philippine woman while stationed overseas. He could not marry her and bring her home to Mississippi because the state's constitution prohibited interracial marriages.
During the war he established a brothel in Quezon City which catered to American servicemen. After serving a year of reserve duty following the Korean War, he settled in Philadelphia, Mississippi. In 1949, he began working as a disc jockey at WHOC, making him the first black disc jockey in the state. By the early 1950s, he was managing a hotel, cab company, and burial insurance business in the town. He had a cafe in Philadelphia and influenced over two hundred black citizens to pay their poll tax.Medgar Wiley Evers, Myrlie Evers-Williams, Manning Marable. (2005). The autobiography of Medgar Evers : a hero's life and legacy revealed through his writings, letters, and speeches. New York: Basic Civitas Books. p. 24. . Forced to leave due to local white hostility in 1956, he moved to Chicago. Low on money, he began working as a meatpacker in stockyards during the day and as an attendant for the men's restroom at the Conrad Hilton Hotel at nights. He also began pimping and ran a numbers game, taking $500 a week from the latter. He gained enough money to purchase several bars, bootlegged liquor, and sold jukeboxes.
Civil rights activism In Mississippi about 1951, brothers Charles and Medgar Evers grew interested in African freedom movements. They were interested in Jomo Kenyatta and the rise of the Kikuyu tribal resistance to colonialism in Kenya, known as the Mau Mau uprising as it moved to open violence. Along with his brother, Charles became active in the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a civil rights organization that promoted self-help and business ownership. He also helped his brother with black voter registration drives. Between 1952 and 1955, Evers often spoke at the RCNL's annual conferences in Mound Bayou, a town founded by freedmen, on such issues as voting rights. His brother Medgar continued to be involved in civil rights, becoming field secretary and head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Mississippi. While working in Chicago he sent money to him, not specifying the source.
On June 12, 1963, Byron De La Beckwith, a member of a Ku Klux Klan chapter, fatally shot Evers's brother, Medgar, in Mississippi as he arrived home from work. Medgar died at the hospital in Jackson. Charles learned of his brother's death several hours later and flew to Jackson the following morning. Deeply upset by the assassination, he heavily involved himself in the planning of his brother's funeral. He decided to relocate to Mississippi to carry on his brother's work. Journalist Jason Berry, who later worked for Charles, said, "I think he wanted to be a better person. I think Medgar's death was a cathartic experience." A decade after his death, Evers and blues musician B.B. King created the Medgar Evers Homecoming Festival, an annual three-day event held the first week of June in Mississippi.
Over the opposition of more establishment figures in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) such as Roy Wilkins, Evers took over his brother's post as head of the NAACP in Mississippi. Wilkins never managed a friendly relationship with Evers, and Medgar's widow, Myrlie, also disapproved of Charles' replacing him. A staunch believer in racial integration, he distrusted what he viewed as the militancy and separatism of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a black-dominated breakaway of the segregationist Mississippi Democratic Party. In 1965 he launched a series of successful black boycotts in southwestern Mississippi which partnered with the Natchez Deacons for Defense and Justice, which won concessions from the Natchez authorities and ratified his unconventional boycott methods.Dirks, Annelieke. “Between Threat and Reality: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Emergence of Armed Self-Defense in Clarksdale and Natchez, Mississippi, 1960-1965.” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, vol. 1, no. 1, 2007, pp. 71–98. JSTOR website Retrieved 15 July 2023. Often accompanied by a group of 65 male followers, he would pressure local blacks in small towns to avoid stores under boycott and directly challenge white business leaders. He also led a voter registration campaign. He coordinated his efforts from the small town of Fayette in Jefferson County. Fayette was a small, economically depressed town of about 2,500 people. About three-fourths of the population was black, and they had long been socially and economically subordinate to the white minority. Evers moved the NAACP's Mississippi field office from Jackson to Fayette to take advantage of the potential of the black majority and achieve political influence in Jefferson and two adjacent counties. He explained, "My feeling is that Negroes gotta control somewhere in America, and we've dropped anchor in these counties. We are going to control these three counties in the next ten years. There is no question about it."
With his voter registration drives having made Fayette's number of black registered voters double the size of the white electorate, Evers helped elect a black man to the local school board in 1966. He also established the Medgar Evers Community Center at the outskirts of town, which served as a center for registration efforts, grocery store, restaurant, and dance hall. By early 1968 he had established a network of local NAACP branches in the region. The president of each branch served as Evers' deputies, and he attended all of their meetings. That year he made a bid for the open seat of the 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, facing six white opponents in the Democratic primary. Though low on funds, he led in the primary with a plurality of the votes. The Mississippi Legislature responded by passing a law mandating a runoff primary in the event of no absolute majority in the initial contest, which Evers lost. He also supported Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, serving as co-director of his Mississippi campaign organization, and was with Kennedy in Los Angeles when he was assassinated.
Mayor of Fayette In May 1969, Evers ran for the office of Mayor of Fayette and defeated white incumbent R. J. Allen, 386 votes to 255. This made him the first black mayor of a biracial Mississippi town (unlike the all-black Mound Bayou) since Reconstruction. Evers' election as mayor had great symbolic significance statewide and attracted national attention. The NAACP named Evers their 1969 Man of the Year. Evers popularized the slogan, "Hands that picked cotton can now pick the mayor." The local white community was bitter about his victory, but he became intensively popular among Mississippi's blacks. To celebrate his victory, he hosted an inaugural ball in Natchez, which was widely attended by black Mississippians, reporters from around the country, and prominent national liberals including Ramsey Clark, Ted Sorensen, Whitney Young, Julian Bond, Shirley MacLaine, and Paul O'Dwyer. The white-dominated school board refused to let Evers swear-in on property under their jurisdiction, so he took his oath of office in a parking lot.
Evers appointed a black police force and several black staff members. He also benefitted from an influx of young, white liberal volunteers who wanted to assist a civil rights leader. Many ended up leaving after growing disillusioned with Evers' pursuit of personal financial success and domineering leadership style. Evers sought to make Fayette an upstanding community and a symbolic refuge for black people. Repulsed by the behavior of poor blacks in the town, he ordered the police force to enforce a 25-mile per hour speed limit on local roads, banned cursing in public, and cracked down on truancy. He also prohibited the carrying of firearms in town but kept a gun on himself. He quickly responded to concerns from poor blacks while making white businessmen wait outside of his office. Rhetorically, he would vacillate between messages of racial conciliation and statements of hostility.
Fayette's white population remained bitter about Evers' victory. Many avoided the city hall where they used to socialize and The Fayette Chronicle regularly criticized him. He argued with the county board of supervisors over his plan to erect busts of his brother, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Kennedys on the courthouse square. He told the press, "They're cooperating because they haven't blown my head off. This is Mississippi." In September 1969, a Klansman drove into Fayette with a collection of weapons, intending to assassinate Evers. A white resident tipped off the mayor and the Klansman was arrested. The Klansman defended his motives by saying, "I am a Mississippi white man".