Civil rights activist Medgar Evers was born in Decatur, Mississippi on July 2, 1925. He served in the United States Army during World War II, and, when he returned from Europe, he attended Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College located in Lorman, Mississippi, graduating in 1950. While working at an insurance company, Evers began to recruit members for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP.) In 1954, he moved to Jackson where he became Mississippi's first field secretary of NAACP. As field secretary, Evers registered black voters and organized boycotts of racist companies. On June 12, 1963, shortly after President John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation about civil rights, Evers was shot and killed outside of his home.

Evers was buried at Arlington National Cemetery and was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP in 1963. In 1994, after two hung juries, the man charged with Ever's murder, Byron de La Beckwith, was convicted of the murder.

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