Editing Charles Evers (section)

===Civil rights activism===
In Mississippi about 1951, brothers Charles and Medgar Evers grew interested in African freedom movements. They were interested in [[Jomo Kenyatta]] and the rise of the [[Kikuyu people|Kikuyu]] tribal resistance to colonialism in [[Kenya]], known as the [[Mau Mau uprising]] as it moved to open violence.<ref name="PBS"/> Along with his brother, Charles became active in the [[Regional Council of Negro Leadership]] (RCNL), a civil rights organization that promoted self-help and business ownership.<ref name="Medgar">{{cite web|url=http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history-medgar-evers|title=NAACP History: Medgar Evers|publisher=NAACP.org|access-date=January 14, 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004234230/http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history-medgar-evers|archive-date=October 4, 2013}}</ref> He also helped his brother with black voter registration drives.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=178}} Between 1952 and 1955, Evers often spoke at the RCNL's annual conferences in [[Mound Bayou, Mississippi|Mound Bayou]], a town founded by freedmen, on such issues as voting rights.<ref name=AP>{{cite news|agency=Associated Press|title=Evers Isn't Proud of Past History|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rpUyAAAAIBAJ&pg=5995,5745001&dq=evers+prostitutes&hl=en|access-date=November 25, 2012|newspaper=Lawrence Journal-World|date=April 14, 1971|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513063409/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rpUyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HucFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5995,5745001&dq=evers+prostitutes&hl=en|archive-date=May 13, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> His brother Medgar continued to be involved in civil rights, becoming field secretary and head of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP) in Mississippi.<ref name="Medgar"/> While working in Chicago he sent money to him, not specifying the source.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=178}}

[[File:JFK and Charles Evers.jpg|right|thumb|220px|Evers (far right) with President [[John F. Kennedy]], June 1963]]
On June 12, 1963, [[Byron De La Beckwith]], a member of a [[Ku Klux Klan]] chapter, fatally shot Evers's brother, Medgar, in Mississippi as he arrived home from work. Medgar died at the hospital in Jackson.<ref name="Assas">{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/medgar-evers-assassinated|title=Medgar Evers Assassinated – Jun 12, 1963|publisher=History.com|access-date=January 14, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171015021053/http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/medgar-evers-assassinated|archive-date=October 15, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> Charles learned of his brother's death several hours later and flew to Jackson the following morning. Deeply upset by the assassination, he heavily involved himself in the planning of his brother's funeral.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=178}} He decided to relocate to Mississippi to carry on his brother's work. Journalist [[Jason Berry]], who later worked for Charles, said, "I think he wanted to be a better person. I think Medgar's death was a cathartic experience."{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|pp=178–179}} A decade after his death, Evers and blues musician [[B.B. King]] created the Medgar Evers Homecoming Festival, an annual three-day event held the first week of June in Mississippi.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/evers-medgar-homecoming-celebration/|title=Medgar Evers Homecoming Celebration|website=Mississippi Encyclopedia|language=en-US}}</ref>

Over the opposition of more establishment figures in the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP) such as [[Roy Wilkins]], Evers took over his brother's post as head of the NAACP in Mississippi.<ref name="PBS">{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_evers.html|title=Charles Evers|publisher=[[PBS]]|access-date=January 14, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020045858/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_evers.html|archive-date=October 20, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> Wilkins never managed a friendly relationship with Evers, and Medgar's widow, [[Myrlie Evers-Williams|Myrlie]], also disapproved of Charles' replacing him.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=177}} A staunch believer in racial integration, he distrusted what he viewed as the militancy and [[Black separatism|separatism]] of the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] and the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]], a black-dominated breakaway of the segregationist [[Mississippi Democratic Party]]. In 1965 he launched a series of successful black boycotts in southwestern Mississippi which partnered with the Natchez [[Deacons for Defense and Justice]], which won concessions from the Natchez authorities and ratified his unconventional boycott methods.<ref>Dirks, Annelieke. “Between Threat and Reality: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Emergence of Armed Self-Defense in Clarksdale and Natchez, Mississippi, 1960-1965.” ''Journal for the Study of Radicalism'', vol. 1, no. 1, 2007, pp. 71–98. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/41887564 JSTOR website] Retrieved 15 July 2023.</ref> Often accompanied by a group of 65 male followers, he would pressure local blacks in small towns to avoid stores under boycott and directly challenge white business leaders.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=179}} He also led a voter registration campaign.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=181}} He coordinated his efforts from the small town of [[Fayette, Mississippi|Fayette]] in [[Jefferson County, Mississippi|Jefferson County]]. Fayette was a small, economically depressed town of about 2,500 people. About three-fourths of the population was black, and they had long been socially and economically subordinate to the white minority.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|pp=179–180}} Evers moved the NAACP's Mississippi field office from Jackson to Fayette to take advantage of the potential of the black majority and achieve political influence in Jefferson and two adjacent counties. He explained, "My feeling is that Negroes gotta control somewhere in America, and we've dropped anchor in these counties. We are going to control these three counties in the next ten years. There is no question about it."{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=180}}

With his voter registration drives having made Fayette's number of black registered voters double the size of the white electorate, Evers helped elect a black man to the local school board in 1966. He also established the Medgar Evers Community Center at the outskirts of town, which served as a center for registration efforts, grocery store, restaurant, and dance hall. By early 1968 he had established a network of local NAACP branches in the region. The president of each branch served as Evers' deputies, and he attended all of their meetings.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=181}} That year he made a bid for the open seat of the [[Mississippi's 3rd congressional district|3rd congressional district]] in the [[U.S. House of Representatives]], facing six white opponents in the Democratic primary.<ref>{{cite news| last = Watts| first = James| title = 16-year-old questioned in gun incident| newspaper = Jackson Daily News| date = March 4, 1968}}</ref> Though low on funds, he led in the primary with a plurality of the votes. The Mississippi Legislature responded by passing a law mandating a runoff primary in the event of no absolute majority in the initial contest, which Evers lost.{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=181}} He also supported [[Robert F. Kennedy]]'s [[Robert F. Kennedy 1968 presidential campaign|1968 presidential campaign]], serving as co-director of his Mississippi campaign organization,<ref name= newsservice>{{Citation| date = November 9, 1977| title = Church, Rights Leader Oscar Carr Dies| publisher = Episcopal News Service| url = http://episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=77364|website= The Archives of the Episcopal Church|access-date=October 7, 2022}}</ref> and was with Kennedy in Los Angeles when he was [[Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy|assassinated]].{{sfn|Nossiter|1994|p=184}}