Byron De La Beckwith

Byron De La Beckwith
Associated Press · Public domain · source
Name	Byron De La Beckwith
Caption	Mugshot of Byron De La Beckwith
Birth name	Byron De La Beckwith Jr.
Birth date	9 November 1920
Birth place	Colusa, California, U.S.
Death date	21 January 2001
Death place	University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.
Conviction	Murder
Conviction penalty	Life imprisonment
Conviction status	Deceased
Spouse	Mary Louise Williams (m. 1946; div. 1963), Thelma Lindsay Neff (m. 1964)
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Marine Corps
Serviceyears	1942–1945
Battles	World War II

Byron De La Beckwith Byron De La Beckwith was an American white supremacist and assassin who murdered Medgar Evers, the NAACP Field Secretary for Mississippi, in 1963. His crime and subsequent trials became a pivotal and galvanizing event in the Civil rights movement, highlighting the violent resistance to integration and the struggle for racial equality in the American South. Beckwith's eventual conviction in 1994, after three decades, marked a significant moment in the pursuit of justice for civil rights-era crimes.

Early Life and Background

Byron De La Beckwith Jr. was born in Colusa, California, but was raised primarily in Greenwood, Mississippi, within a prominent Southern family. He attended the Greenwood High School and later studied at Mississippi State University before his education was interrupted by World War II. Beckwith served with distinction in the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater, earning a Purple Heart. After the war, he worked as a Tobacco salesman and became deeply involved in the Citizens' Councils, organizations dedicated to preserving racial segregation and states' rights. He was a fervent segregationist, openly expressing his white nationalist views and his membership in the Ku Klux Klan.

Assassination of Medgar Evers

On the night of June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers returned to his home in Jackson, Mississippi, after a meeting with NAACP lawyers. As he exited his car, he was shot in the back with a high-powered .30-06 caliber Enfield rifle. Evers died less than an hour later at a local hospital. The murder, occurring just hours after President John F. Kennedy's nationally televised address on civil rights, sent shockwaves across the nation. Evidence quickly pointed to Beckwith; his fingerprint was found on the rifle scope, and witnesses placed him in the vicinity. He was arrested days later. The assassination transformed Evers into a martyr for the Civil rights movement, intensifying national support for what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Trials and Legal Proceedings

Beckwith was tried twice in 1964 for the murder of Medgar Evers. Both trials, held in Jackson, Mississippi, before all-white juries, ended in hung juries. Notably, during the proceedings, former Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett interrupted the trial to shake Beckwith's hand in a show of solidarity, an act emblematic of the institutional support for segregationist defiance. The case was then dropped by the state. For nearly three decades, Beckwith lived as a free man, often boasting of his role in Greenwood social circles. The case was reopened in 1989 after new evidence emerged from an investigation by the ''Clarion-Ledger'' newspaper and persistent efforts by Evers's widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams. In a third trial in 1994, prosecuted by District Attorney Bobby DeLaughter, Beckwith was finally convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Imprisonment and Later Life

Following his 1994 conviction, Byron De La Beckwith was incarcerated at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. He maintained his innocence and his segregationist beliefs until his death, never expressing remorse for the killing of Medgar Evers. His health declined in prison, and he was eventually transferred to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. He died of heart failure on January 21, 2001, at the age of 80. His death closed the chapter on one of the most notorious figures of the civil rights era, though his legacy as a symbol of racist violence endured.

Legacy and Cultural Depictions

The murder of Medgar Evers and the long-delayed conviction of Byron De La Beckwith remain central to the narrative of the Civil rights movement. The case demonstrated the deep-seated racial violence of the era and the initial failure of the Southern judiciary to deliver justice. It also became a benchmark for later efforts to prosecute unresolved civil rights-era cold cases, inspiring units like the FBI's Cold Case Initiative. Culturally, the story has been depicted in several works, most notably in the 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi, which dramatized the 1994 trial, with James Woods portraying Beckwith. The Evers home in Jackson is now a National Historic Landmark, preserved by the National Park Service. Beckwith's life and crimes serve as a stark reminder of the extremism that opposed the movement for civil rights and the enduring necessity of upholding the rule of law.