"Somebody has to do it. It's on my shoulders... You've got to speak up. These things are not going to come easy."An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted on 04/15/2025
as a courtesy to the United States Department Of Defense
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"Somebody has to do it. It's on my shoulders... You've got to speak up. These things are not going to come easy."
Another name for whom history already weaves a grand tapestry: Medger Wiley Evers. Less-known than his role in crystallizing the modern civil rights movements, is his time with the United States Army during World War II, and the life lessons he internalized while serving.
Born in 1925 Decatur, Mississippi, Evers managed to excel academically even during a childhood of extreme poverty and during a time of oppressive Jim Crow laws. He was also no stranger to cruel injustices, nor the horrors of lynching. In 1943, with WWII raging at full force, seventeen year-old Evers enlisted with the U.S. Army and was detailed to the 657th Port Company, a segregated unit. The 657th was deployed to Europe as part of a larger logistics organization that delivered food, fuel, and ammunition to the front. During his time in the European theater, Evers continued to endure bigotry and undisguised racism from his own country, but also witnessed firsthand how French Black servicemen were treated with total equality. To say this double standard made an impact is likely underselling it.
Perhaps most significantly, Evers's unit saw action on D-Day in Normandy, as part of Operation Overlord. By the time Sgt. Evers completed his service with an honorable discharge in 1946, he had accumulated a Good Conduct Medal, two Bronze Service Stars, and the World War II Victory Medal. He returned to a Decatur culture largely unchanged by the war, and promptly returned to the front lines, so to speak --trying to improve conditions for his fellow Black Americans, beginning with voter registration drives and speaking out very publicly in favour of integration. His (belated) GI benefits were put towards earning a BA at Alcorn State University, and into a life that would eventually encourage boycotts, elevate him to a prominent leadership role in the NAACP, and investigating brutal murders and lynchings in the South, including that of Emmett Till (see Lesson #110 in this series). His assassination in 1963 was in many ways a bellwether for passage of the Civil Rights Act a year later.
Sgt. Evers is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Comb through the Wayback Machine for this misplaced biography:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250201111249/https://www.army.mil/article/233093/army_veteran_medgar_wiley_evers_a_foot_soldier_in_struggle_for_justice
Next lesson - Lesson 184: Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers