Byron de la Beckwith and Medgar Evers never met. Evers didn’t even see the man who killed him. But the man and his killer grew up a hundred miles apart, fought in the same war, worked similar jobs, and were both deeply invested in the outcome over the fight for integration.

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

Mendelsohn, Jack. (1966) The martyrs : sixteen who gave their lives for racial justice. Harper & Row

Vollers, Maryanne (1995). Ghosts of Mississippi. Little Brown & Company.

Rolph, Stephanie (2018). Resisting Equality: The Citizens' Council, 1954-1989. Louisiana State University Press

Williams, Michael Vinson (2011). Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr. The University of Arkansas Press

Evers, Charles and Andrew Szanton (1997). Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story. John Wiley & Sons Inc

Tisale, John (1996). Medgar Evers (1925-1963) and the Mississippi Press. Doctoral Dissertation, University of North Texas

Sheridan, Louis (2021) "Patriotism Betrayed: How the U.S. Military Resegregated From 1913-1939," Historical Perspectives: Santa Clara University Undergraduate Journal of History, Series II : Vol. 26, Article 11.

Donaldson, Le'Trice, "A Legacy All Their Own: African American Soldiers Fight for Citizenship, Race, and
Manhood, 1870-1920" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1167.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/etd/1167

Hartgrove, W. B. “The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 1, no. 2, 1916, pp. 110–31. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3035634.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1963/07/06/where-is-the-voice-coming-from

https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/welty/welty-manuscripts/weltys08

https://press.bobmizer.org/releases/instant-gratification

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/20/books/my-uncle-the-bigot.html

https://www.history.com/articles/battle-of-tarawa

https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/Tarawa/InvasionCasualties

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/marine-killed-battle-tarawa-laid-rest-80-years-later

https://www.oyez.org/about-audio

https://www.army.mil/article/97705/black_soldiers_in_the_revolutionary_war

https://diaryofahistorian.com/2013/03/05/for-evers-his-is-a-story-that-must-be-told-and-retold-too-few-young-people-know-his-story-and-that-is-a-tragedy-greater-than-his-untimely-death/

https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2021/11/10/african-american-seamen-of-the-antebellum-era/

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/CombatMultipliers.pdf

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This week, Molly watched Citizen Vigilante, a new film from the world's worst director.

Sources & Further Reading:

https://scoutmagazine.ca/remembering-gastowns-ambitious-but-doomed-modern-german-restaurant/

https://www.dailysabah.com/arts/cinema/hanau-attack-film-angers-victims-families

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/03/the-fall-of-armie-hammer-a-family-saga-of-sex-money-drugs-and-betrayal

https://people.com/movies/armie-hammer-controversy-timeline/

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/sep/26/news

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/restaurant-reviews/article-tk-alex-gill-review-of-kozak-ukrainian-restaurant/

Simi, Pete, and Robert Futrell. American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010

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On the night of June 11, 1963, Byron de la Beckwith murdered Medgar Evers with a single shot. But how did he end up hiding in a bush across the street from the home of a civil rights leader?

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

Zinn, Howard. (1964) SNCC: The New Abolitionists. Beacon Press. Boston.

Mendelsohn, Jack. (1966) The martyrs : sixteen who gave their lives for racial justice. Harper & Row

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/06/12/issue.html

https://www.lodinews.com/features/vintage_lodi/article_426cb4b4-269e-5c6f-ba07-7e92ecf23142.html

https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/witnesses/medgarevers.htm

https://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/medgar-evers-and-the-origin-of-the-civil-rights-movement-in-mississippi

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~tnalhn/runawayslavenotices.htm

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/us/byron-de-la-beckwith-dies-killer-of-medgar-evers-was-80.html

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Last week, a federal judge ordered the Department of the Interior to stop implementation of a Trump executive order that would whitewash history at National Park sites. A leaked database shows the materials that parks employees had flagged for removal. They want to 'make America great' by erasing its past.

Sources & Further Reading:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/

https://www.doi.gov/document-library/secretary-order/so-3431-restoring-truth-and-sanity-american-history

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72285106/national-parks-conservation-association-v-department-of-the-interior/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72178941/city-of-philadelphia-v-burgum/

https://sites.google.com/umn.edu/save-our-signs/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ulzIcpjpyTKLa52DClUkUlcazJPdAryK0B0oKmA9TF8/

https://mississippitoday.org/2026/02/05/medgar-evers-killer-trump-says-stop-calling-him-racist/
https://mississippitoday.org/2026/02/05/visitor-brochures-returned-medgar-evers-home/

https://mississippitoday.org/2026/02/12/medgar-evers-home-omissions-to-story/

https://mississippitoday.org/2025/03/17/wwii-vet-medgar-evers-erased-from-arlington-cemetery-website/

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/brochures-calling-medgar-evers-killer-racist-still-available-at-evers-home/

https://www.nhpr.org/2013-08-12/van-evers-honors-his-father-in-his-own-way

https://abcnews.com/Politics/hegseth-announces-usns-harvey-milk-renamed-usns-oscar/story?id=123266490

https://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/medgar-evers-family-fights-efforts-to-strip-his-name-from-navy-vessel/

https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/02/national-park-service-plans-censor-brochures-murder-civil-rights-leader

https://npshistory.com/publications/memy/brochures/2021.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/16/philadelphia-trump-judge-slavery-history/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/us/politics/judge-national-parks-trump.html

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In 1980, Texas Klan Grand Dragon Louis Beam was running a paramilitary training camp outside of Houston. But they weren't just training klansmen for the race war. They ran a boy scout camp on the weekends.

Sources and further reading:

Belew, Kathleen. Bring the War Home : The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. Harvard University Press, 2018.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/518/993/2128255/

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/518/1017/2128803/

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/543/198/1460786/

https://www.nytimes.com/1980/11/30/archives/paramilitary-actions-irk-neighbors-of-texas-camp-charter.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/11/24/boy-scouts-taught-to-fire-weapons-strangle-opponents/1eec4466-569a-47a8-b2e1-ce60c763ffe7/

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/11/23/Charge-Klan-teaches-scouts-how-to-strangle-people/2641343803600/

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/11/24/Klan-member-trains-youths-at-paramilitary-camp/6144343890000/

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/11/25/A-mother-says-two-teen-age-Explorer-scouts-who-attended/4442343976400/

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/12/05/The-owner-of-a-10-acre-plot-of-land-used/1128344840400/

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In 1967, segregationist lawyer Jack Kershaw swore out a warrant against George Ware, an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. By the end of the week, a congressman was denouncing Ware on the house floor as an outside agitator. But what is an outside agitator? What do we mean when we blame unrest on these untrustworthy outsiders? Where does that idea come from? And is it even true?

Sources & Further Reading:

https://belonging.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/ARCHIVE/kerner_commission_full_report.pdf

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

https://www.crmvet.org/docs/sv/670400_sncc_nyc-newsletter.pdf

https://www.christcathedral.org/phase-to-history/st-anselms-liberation-school-and-the-long-hot-summer-of-1967/

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/274/538/1574803/

https://www.phillytrib.com/obituaries/george-w-ware-jr-72-educator/article_0e1a1218-3c2b-51fa-b960-61094a1f6d98.html

https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/digital/collection/GSB/id/10262/

https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal67-1311343

https://www.nytimes.com/1967/08/05/archives/us-aides-in-visit-to-negro-school-view-a-drama-at-institution-cited.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1967/08/12/archives/nashville-panel-suspends-school-liberation-classroom-also-ousted.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1967/08/09/archives/official-changes-testimony-on-antiwhite-school.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1967/08/30/archives/sedition-charges-dropped.html

https://www.wsmv.com/2025/02/25/former-nashville-assistant-police-chief-dies-while-custody-wifes-death/

https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/wife-former-mnpd-assistant-police-chief-found-shot-to-death-rutherford-county/

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-07-12/race-troubles-109-us-cities-faced-violence-in-1967

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2020/07/27/a-brief-history-of-dangerous-others/

https://dailynorthwestern.com/2020/11/12/audio/defining-safe-defining-the-outside-agitator/

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We lost one of the greats last month. Laura Sullivan was an antifascist researcher, a photographer, a journalist, a friend, a mother, and a mentor. She was a legend and we were lucky to have her while we did.

You can make a donation to One People's Project, the antifascist organization Laura was involved in for more than two decades, here:
https://onepeoplesproject.com/donate/

Daryle Lamont Jenkins' tribute to his longtime friends & collaborators, Laura & Mike Sullivan: https://idavox.com/index.php/2026/05/07/the-sullivans-much-love-and-rest-in-peace/

Abner Hauge's tribute to Laura & Mike: https://leftcoastrightwatch.org/articles/in-memoriam-laura-mike-sullivan/

Laura's Obituary: https://obituaries.carewellcremations.com/laura-sullivan

Sources & Further Reading:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jeffrey-clark-dc-neo-nazi-arrested_n_5beb99ffe4b0caeec2bf24e5

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nazi-punch-antifa_n_59e13ae9e4b03a7be580ce6f

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/02/fbi-court-battle-identity-imf-protest-informants

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.