Civil Rights Icons: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr & Medgar Evers

The Civil Rights Movement showed how influence and passion, for what people believe in, can change their lives. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Medgar Evers were two men who shared the same passion during the Civil Rights Movement. Their Influences were far different than most people realize.

Although, these two men come from different backgrounds, their contributions to the Civil Rights Movement are unparalleled and their mission was the same. Both men were born in the 1920s (King in 1929 and Evers in 1925) prior to the Great Depression. Evers was raised in a family of six children. He was the fourth child of the six. In a book, Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice, Jack Mendelsohn quoted Evers on his childhood. “I was born in Decatur herein Mississippi, and when we were walking to school in first grade white kids in their school buses would throw things at us and yell filthy things”. Despite the lynching and discrimination towards African Americans being a common thing in Mississippi, Evers always had a strong and proud role model in his father.

Dr. King’s childhood brings a religious aspect to the Civil Rights conversation. King’s father was born “Michael King” and Martin Luther King, Jr’s name was “Michael King, Jr” until the family traveled to Germany in 1934. King’s father changed his own name and his son’s name to “Martin Luther” in honor of the German Protestant leader of the same name.

Both men may have different education backgrounds, but their goals were the same. Evers went to school all the way to ninth grade and dropped out to join the U.S. Army with his older brother, Charlie in 1943. He served in various locations worldwide during World War II. In 1946, he was honorably discharged with rank of Sergeant. While Evers served his country with honors, King had a different point of view when it comes to the military. King made no secret of his views of war, especially the Vietnam War. I wonder what Evers would have done if given the opportunity to serve in the Vietnam War.

However, when Evers left the military, he got off to an early start in activism by joining the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). While he was a student at Alcorn A&M College (known today as Alcorn State University), he was very active in various projects as a field secretary with NAACP. His accomplishments did not stop him from earning his degree in Business Administration in 1952. Like Evers, Dr. King was a very accomplished young man in college.

Dr. King attended Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1944, at age 15, he enrolled in a special wartime program at Morehouse College. The program was intended to boost enrollment by admitting promising young students like King. Initially, King studied medicine and law in his early years in college. In his senior year, he decided to enter the ministry. King’s mentor, Benjamin Mays, was president of the college. Mays was also a gospel activist who inspired King to join the cause of activism. Dr. King would graduate from Morehouse College with a degree in sociology in 1948. Soon after graduation from Morehouse College, he attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. He would earn his bachelor’s degree in Divinity there in 1951. He would also go on to Boston University to study systematic theology. He would earn his Doctorate in Philosophy for his dissertation titled “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Harry Nelson Wieman”.

The legacies of both King and Evers were memorialized in various ways to represent the value of the lives of these two men. Their contributions will be remembered forever in the hearts and souls of many Americans. Evers legacy includes being memorialized by authors such as Eudora Welty, James Baldwin, and Margaret Walker, just to name a few. In 1969, Medgar Evers College was established in Brooklyn, New York, as part of the City University of New York. In 1983, a made-for-television movie, For Us The Living: The Medgar Evers Story, was created to celebrate the life and career of Medgar Evers. The city of Jackson, Mississippi erected a statue in honor of Medgar Evers in 1992.In December of 2004, The Jackson City Council renamed the city airport to Jackson-Evers International Airport in honor of Evers.

Dr. King’s legacy had a broader range of influence both in and out of the United States of America. Many roads, buildings, schools were renamed after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in the 1970s and 1980s. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. A national holiday was dedicated in his name in 1986. In 1991, The Lorraine Motel, where King was shot, became a National Civil Rights Museum in honor of King. The chapters in history for both Dr. King and Mr. Evers will never be closed. They live on in memories and the legacies of both men take on a life of their own.

Regardless of their early lives, their achievements and their legacies, we, as Americans, cannot take for granted. It is not about blacks, whites, Hispanics or any other race living separately in a split society. It is about us, as people regardless of race, skin color, or gender, coming together as one. Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech epitomizes what he believed in for past, present, and future times to live together as a people with equal values. It is human nature that as people, we tend to disagree on moral values and beliefs. The lives of both Dr. King and Medgar Evers go far beyond what we as citizens of this great nation are capable of achieving.