Medgar Evers Historic Speech Still Missing 6 Decades Later 

In 1963, Medgar Evers made history as the first Black Mississippian to make a speech on local television when he spoke out. This should be a storied piece of Black History that’s displayed in museums, right? Well, unfortunately, that’s not the case, as it’s been six decades since the speech, and no one knows whether any recordings of it exist. 

WLBT, the station where Evers made his speech, reports that Millsaps College researcher Dr. Caroline Bayne shared her findings about the speech during a presentation called “Just Tonight Only: Medgar Evers on Jackson, Mississippi Television” at the Two Mississippi Museums. 

Evers was a civil rights activist and the NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi. His speech called for Black people to receive equal treatment, and Evers spoke out against segregation in the state. 

In further proof that racist white folks have always been the biggest snowflakes, people called into the station with death threats following the speech’s broadcast. Evers was assassinated only a month after giving the speech on WLBT.

Given the way WLBT was moving in the ‘60s, it wouldn’t be surprising if officials at the station simply destroyed the speech after it aired. The NBC affiliate regularly broadcast programming from the segregationist Citizens’ Council and refused to show Blacks on network television. The speech only aired on WLBT as a result of the Federal Communications Commission mandating that the station provide equal airtime to the Civil Rights Movement. 

When NBC broadcast a documentary about Evers following his assassination nationally, WLBT refused to air it. “Medgar Evers was among one of the first to campaign against the station,” Bayne told WLBT.

What makes the disappearance of the speech all the more suspect is that it wasn’t broadcast live. “In Myrlie Evers-Williams’ memoir, she says specifically that Medgar Evers did not record at WLBT,” Bayne said. “She says he was taken to an out-of-the-way location to film and that it was aired later that evening. It was not live.”

Although the speech was prerecorded, there is no documentation of where it went or what happened to the tape. WLBT donated archival video to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in the 1980s, and the speech was nowhere to be found among the footage. 

Medgar Evers’ daughter, Reena Evers-Everette, was 8 years old when he gave the speech and remembers watching it as it aired on TV. The speech occurred before home video was even a thing, so people couldn’t record it as it aired on TV. 

“It was very difficult to keep some of that documentation,” Evers-Everette told WLBT.

Earlier this month, Evers’ family celebrated what would’ve been his 101st birthday at his home in Jackson, Mississippi. During his tenure as field secretary, Evers would host voter registration drives at his home and coordinate boycotts. 

Olivia Spann, a supervisory park ranger, told WLBT that Evers’s impact was felt throughout Mississippi. “He did a lot for the city of Jackson, but he was the field secretary for the entire state of Mississippi, so I think it’s important for people to realize he was impacting every corner of this state from top to bottom,” Spann said.

While Evers’ speech may be missing, his work fighting for the rights of Black people in Mississippi and beyond will never be forgotten. 

SEE ALSO:

Remembering Medgar Evers’ Quest For Racial Equality

National Park Service Removes Brochures For Medgar Evers Monument