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- [00:00]
David Biancooli
This message comes from Capella University. At Capella, you can earn your degree with support from people who care about your success. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella. Edu.
- [00:15]
Terry Gross
This is FRESH air. I'm David Biancooli. How to Be a Civil Rights Widow is one chapter title in a book by Joy Reid, the former MSNBC evening show host. The widow is Murlie Evers. Her husband was Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist who served as the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary and risked his life to push for voting rights, desegregation and freedom. Reid's book is called Medgar and Murley and is now out in paperback. Medgar and Murley were both from Mississippi. Murley constantly worried about the safety of her husband and their children. With good reason. Their house was firebombed. Later, in June 1963, Medgar was assassinated just outside the door of their home. Murley had heard the gunshot and found her husband bleeding out. His was the first in a series of high profile assassinations in the 1960s. Next came President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. And Robert Kennedy. Joy Reid describes her book Medgar and Murley as a love story between two black people in Mississippi, their love for their children and the higher love it took for black Americans to love America and to fight for it, even in the state that butchered more black bodies via lynching than any other. The love story between Murley and Medgar Evers also is fraught with tension, with Merle objecting to how much he was away from home, leaving her wondering if he loved his work much more than he loved his family. He often left her alone to deal with the constant phone calls threatening the lives of her family. After her husband's death, Murley became an activist, an in demand public speaker and executive director of the naacp. She gave the invocation at President Obama's second inauguration. Joy Reid spoke with Terry Gross last year.
- [02:11]
Joy Reid
Joy Reid, welcome to FRESH air.
- [02:13]
Myrlie Evers
Oh, thank you, Terry. It is so wonderful to be here.
- [02:15]
Joy Reid
It's a pleasure to have you here. You think, and rightfully so, I think that Medgar Evers hasn't really gotten the recognition he deserves as an important figure in the civil rights movement. I think he's more famous for getting assassinated than for the work he actually did.
- [02:30]
Myrlie Evers
That's true. I think that's true. And you know, I think part of that is because of the just momentous year in which he was murdered, 1963. So many things happened in 1963, that kind of overwhelmed knowledge of what happened, of what he did. We start with this landmark speech that President Kennedy gave hours before Medgar was assassinated in front of his home. A speech in which John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States, was echoing the language that Medgar Evers, a FWELLOW World War II veteran, was using in order to push for civil rights and change in Mississippi. Then he is assassinated. The world paid profound attention to it for that moment. But then later that summer you have the March on Washington, the bombing in Birmingham that killed four little girls. And then at the end of that year you have the assassination of the President of the United States. Those things alone overwhelmed the knowledge of Medgar Evers just in the moment. And then you have two years later Malcolm X being assassinated. And then five years after Medgar, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Is assassinated. And then in between, you've got Freedom Summer and the assassinations of Goodwin, Schwerner and Cheney. So there's so many events that happened both in Mississippi and nationally that his legacy sort of became overwhelmed.
- [04:01]
Joy Reid
Give us an overview of the work that he did.
- [04:04]
Myrlie Evers
So you start with Emmett Till at the time, most high profile lynching that had taken place in America. This was a 14 year old boy who had family in Mississippi, had roots in Mississippi, but lived in Chicago, came down for the summer to be with his cousins. He's murdered for sassing a white woman. It is only because of Medgar Evers that there was ever a trial. Because typically in the south when a black person was murdered by a white person or white people, nothing happened. It wasn't in fact illegal in a sense to kill black people. You could kill at will if you were white because the justice system would never hold you to account. But Medgar really believed that people should be held to account for killing black people, for destroying black bodies and black lives. He is the one who went into the Delta to compel terrified sharecroppers, including Emmett Till's uncle, to testify against white men. He of course then had to spirit those people out of the state of Mississippi. But it is only because of him that the world really knew about this case and that case ever went to trial. You talk about Kennedy's speech. Kennedy is literally echoing the man who had been repeatedly telegraphing him from Mississippi, Medgar Evers, who was demanding begging for federal troops to come to Mississippi because Mississippians were being den the basic right to vote.
- [05:29]
Joy Reid
And then there's James Meredith. And Medgar Evers had applied to Ole Miss, the University of Mississippi, and of course he Was denied admission because he was black. They were not accepting black students. So when James Meredith applied testing desegregation, it was Medgar Evers who went right to his support. What did he do to help Meredith get in?
- [05:52]
Myrlie Evers
Well, James Meredith actually made the call to the NAACP to Thurgood Marshall from Medgar and Merlie Evers home. So he calls and, you know, it is Medgar that gets him representation from the NAACP after, you know, James Meredith is. He's a very special guy. I interviewed him for the book, and he's very caustic. And he gets into this argument on the phone with Thurgood Marshall and hangs up on him. And it's Medgar that says, you know what, we might want to call him back. And he talks James Meredith down, which was not easy to do. But his brother Charles, Charles was similar in temperament. So he knew how to deal with someone like him. And he manages to call back and get James Meredith, the NAACP lawyers that actually successfully get him through the court cases that get him admitted in a very violent, riot induced way into Ole Miss.
- [06:42]
Joy Reid
Medgar Evers was the Mississippi field secretary for the naacp, but his approach often diverged from the organizations. The NAACP under Roy Wilkins defined its work as being work through the courts. But Everest didn't always want to work through the. I mean, he appreciated that the work was being done in the courts, but he thought more was needed. What were the kind of protests that he helped organize?
- [07:09]
Myrlie Evers
Well, and you know, in addition to being the field secretary, he was actually the first field secretary. They created the position for him as, in part, a way to discourage him from reapplying to Ole Miss. They saw in him an activist who had potential, but they really didn't want him to make this application. They were like, come and work for us. He went to New York, he interviewed with Roy Wilkins, and they gave him the job. What they told him to do is go back to Mississippi and register people for NAACP memberships and register them to vote. But what he understood is that people weren't gonna register to vote if they were being terrorized. You know, not only could you be evicted from the plantation where you lived, if you tried to register to vote, you could be lynched for it. And so people were too scared. And he understood that what you needed first was people to develop the courage to move and demand their citizenship.
- [08:00]
Joy Reid
So a lot of people in Mississippi were too afraid to register for the NAACP or to, you know, call out racism. But the people who were willing to do that were the high school students and the college students. And so Medgar Evers wanted to work with them. What did the NAACP say to that?
- [08:21]
Myrlie Evers
They said, no. Quite simply, they said, this is not what we want. And Medgar was threatened with being fired multiple times because he believed that the courage that was needed was found in the youth. It was young people, quite frankly, like James Cheney, who as a 15 year old was expelled from school for pinning an NAACP membership sticker on his lapel. He was part of these NAACP youth councils that Medgar was setting up all over the state. And so he's nurturing these young people who wanted liberation. Now, they didn't want to wait for court cases to be listened to by white people. They believed that they could get their liberation for themselves. And that courage absolutely existed in college students from Tougaloo and Alcorn and from high school kids. And he believed in them. And his bosses said, unacceptable. We're wasting money bailing them out of jail. Stop.
- [09:19]
Joy Reid
I think it's interesting the way you get to some divisions within the civil rights movement at the time, not only between Evers and the naacp, but. But Evers and groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and core, the Congress on Racial Equality groups that were coming down to Mississippi. He was concerned about the Freedom Riders coming down to Mississippi because he thought it would jeopardize the work that Mississippi civil rights workers and activists were already doing. What was he worried about?
- [09:51]
Myrlie Evers
Well, I think part of it was that he had this fundamental belief that people needed to fight for liberation for themselves. They didn't need the courage imported in from the north. And that only when Mississippians themselves were fighting for their liberation would that liberation be real. Because those northern activists were gonna go home when they were finished with their Freedom Summer. They could go back. Now, that didn't always happen. Obviously, Goodman and Schwerner never went home. And they were taking risks, tremendous risks as well. But he just fundamentally believed it had to come from within the Mississippi community. He also believed that they were just going to relearn the same lessons he had already learned. He had already worked in the Delta, he already had lived in the Delta. And they were just going to show up in these communities and find out how terrified people were and they would have the same results he did, not being able to register people to vote. And that's exactly what happened.
- [10:48]
Joy Reid
Expand on that. What happened?
- [10:50]
Myrlie Evers
So Bob Moses and other activists came down. Of course, Bob Moses was this brilliant activist from New York and a math genius. And he comes down and he winds up working in the Delta actually using some of the infrastructure that Medgar had helped to set up in these NAACP satellite offices. And some of those same activists joined and helped out. But there were a lot of Northern activists that were working there as well. But when the numbers came in from how many people were actually being registered, the numbers were actually quite low. And Medgar was frustrated that he had already known that and felt that the Northern activists didn't quite understand the kind of terror that they were dealing with.
- [11:35]
Joy Reid
On the other hand, like the Freedom Rides brought so much national attention to what was happening in the South.
- [11:42]
Myrlie Evers
It absolutely did. And you know, it's interesting because the Freedom Riders themselves really wanted Dr. King to be on those buses with them because they thought that they needed his notoriety in order to get the attention. But it turned out white Southerners did the work for them. By firebombing buses, by reacting with such tremendous violence and vehemence, it turned the national spotlight on the South. And the original destination of the Freedom Rides was New Orleans. But they didn't get through Alabama and Mississippi without tremendous headlines that were caused by the violence that was meted out upon them.
- [12:21]
Joy Reid
Medgar Evers fought in World War II. He was actually on Omaha beach on D Day. After he returned home. How did he see the US and in particular Mississippi, differently than he'd seen it before?
- [12:36]
Myrlie Evers
Well, you know what's fascinating about Medgar Evers and all of those black men who fought in World War I and World War II is that when they returned, they had traveled more widely than most white Americans had. He had seen Europe, a place where there was no de jure segregation, where he could have a white girlfriend, and he did in France, whose parents completely approved of the relationship, he could walk around freely without fear of lynching. And despite the fact that their units were still segregated and white officers and commanders still spoke to and treated black servicemen as second class citizens, they officially could not enforce Jim Crow in Europe. And when Medgar came back, he was already someone who was interested in the world. He was kind of fascinated with the anti colonial movements in places like Kenya. He came back even more convinced that Mississippi was not only not the world, it was an aberration in the world. And that black people were meant to live the way he had been able to live freely in Europe. And while that didn't mean that he could bring his white girlfriend home to Mississippi, he certainly could not. It meant that he ought to be able to be treated as a man. And when he arrives back in Decatur, Mississippi, he gets on the bus in his full uniform and is told to go to the back of the bus. And he says, I'm not gonna do that. I was willing to die for my country overseas and I'm not gonna come home and be treated as a second class citizen. And he took the beating of his life, he said, but he was a different man after that.
- [14:15]
Joy Reid
I want to get to an early part of his life story when he is exposed to a lynching of his father's friend. I think this is a real, like, significant story. Tell us what happened.
- [14:28]
Myrlie Evers
So the Evers family knew a man named Mr. Tingle who lived in town, in the town of Decatur. And when Medgar was either 7 or 11, depending on whether he or Charles Evers, his brother, who was a very ostentatious fellow, was telling the story. They were walking to school and they saw the pass by the bloody clothes of this gentleman who had been lynched for sassing a white woman, which was something that could get you lynched in the south and particularly in Mississippi. And they had actually seen this gentleman being dragged through the streets earlier in that morning. And he was beaten, he was shot, his body was shot full. And the clothes were left behind in the Decatur fairgrounds as a message to every black Mississippian that this could happen to you if you stepped out of line in any way. And that made an impression on him. He never forgot it.
- [15:32]
Joy Reid
And it was his father who collected the body and brought him to the funeral home.
- [15:37]
Myrlie Evers
Yes, his father's uncle had a funeral home. And so his father, who they called Crazy Jim because he was one of the few blacks who did not bow down to white people, which made white people think he was insane. They called him Crazy Jim. He picked the body up, took it to the funeral home. And Medgar asked him, could you be lynched that way? And his father, who, again, was the strongest person he knew, was a tough guy who would stand up to white people. He said, absolutely, I could be lynched. And it gave Medgar this sense of a lack of safety that his strong, big, you know, tall dad also couldn't protect him, couldn't protect him any more than Willie Tingle could be protected. And it terrified him. And the thing that really enraged him was the silence, the fact that there were no marches, no protests. This gentleman was not spoken about in church on Sunday. He was sort of forgotten, as if he just vanished.
- [16:31]
Joy Reid
Let's talk about how Medgar and Murley first met. They both went to the historically black college, Alcorn A and M, which later became Alcorn State University. He was 25 because he had already come back from the war, and she was 17. So that at the time, seemed like a very big age difference. They were in different places in terms of fighting for equality. Describe her background.
- [16:59]
Myrlie Evers
So Merle Evers. Merlee Louise Beasley was her original last name. She grew up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which was a rural town, obviously very segregated, just like all of Mississippi. And she was raised by her grandmother and her aunt, whose name was also Murley. Her grandmother, in particular was a huge influence on her. They taught her to be prim, to be proper, to speak properly, to play the piano. And so she was taught to be a good girl. And her grandmother and her aunt gave her three prohibitions when she went to college. They said, you are not to date an upperclassman, a football player, or a veteran. Medgar was all three.
- [17:42]
Joy Reid
When she and Medgar Evers started seeing each other, he said, you're going to be the mother of my children. I'm going to shape you into the woman I want you to be. That made me very uncomfortable. I don't like it when men decide they want to be involved with women who they can mentor, because that ends up being a very unequal relationship. You don't want to be your boyfriend or your husband's student. You want to be their equal. So what was your reaction when you heard that?
- [18:16]
Myrlie Evers
Well, it's funny because Murley's reaction was, you got a huge job ahead of you, buddy. She was actually angry that he said that it made her angry. And he would say things all the time that would annoy her, right? Like he was challenging to her, in one sense is that, you know, he would talk to her about the world, about, you know, about Kenya, about the MAU MAU who were, you know, fomenting a revolution to get out from under the British Empire. And he would talk about the world and about the world beyond America, about Europe. And so in that sense, she was intrigued by him, but he also infuriated her. And he would say things like that. Those are the things that would annoy her. But you have to remember, this was also the 1950s, when the idea of women being the equal of their husbands was not a thing. It was not a thing for white women, and it was not a thing for black women. And so while it did infuriate and annoy her, it wasn't a deal breaker. And that's in part because of the era.
- [19:11]
Joy Reid
And she said, we argued like crazy. They fought over his work. What were her objections?
- [19:17]
Myrlie Evers
Well, you know, Murley really did aspire to be a 1950s housewife. When she fell in love with this man, she thought they would go off into the sunset and he'd be an insurance salesman. And in fact, he literally got a job as an insurance salesman. And she thought, you know, she didn't want to be where they were living, Mound Bayou, which was in the Delta, which she hated, the bugs, the heat. She just couldn't take it. She wanted to be in the city. She was bored. She was miserable. She was lone because he was out selling insurance all day. But she was terrified because while he was selling insurance for TRM Howard's insurance company, and TRM Howard was a hugely influential man among black civil rights activists. He was an activist, but also a businessman and a wealthy man. And she hated the fact that he was risking his life selling freedom and civil rights with insurance and telling these Delta residents, listen, you have rights accruable to you as citizens. While he's saying you, you also need to have these policies so that your family can survive economically. She was terrified and she was angry that she felt he was choosing this work and this civil rights work over her and their children.
- [20:27]
Terry Gross
Joy Reid spoke to Terry Gross last year. Her book about Medgar and Merlie Evers, titled Medgar and Merlee, is now out in paperback. We'll continue their conversation after a short break. And later, Justin Chang reviews the new supernatural thriller cinema winner. I'm David Biancooli, and this is FRESH air.
- [20:46]
David Biancooli
This message comes from NPR sponsor. Disney Season one of Andor had critics calling it the best Star wars series yet. Now season two of the Emmy nominated series returns April 22nd. Follow Cassian Andor as he embarks on a path from a rebel to a hero, starring Diego Luna. And from creator Tony Gilroy, writer of Michael Clayton and the bourne identity. Season two of Andor is streaming April 22nd only on Disney. When Malcolm Gladwell presented NPR's Throughline podcast with a Peabody Award, he praised it for its historical and moral clarity.
- [21:25]
Myrlie Evers
On Throughline, we take you back in.
- [21:27]
David Biancooli
Time to the origins of what's in the news, like presidential power, aging and evangelicalism.
- [21:33]
Myrlie Evers
Time travel with us every week on the Throughline podcast from npr.
- [21:39]
David Biancooli
Want to know what's happening in the world?
- [21:41]
Myrlie Evers
Listen to the State of the World podcast.
- [21:44]
David Biancooli
Every weekday we bring you important stories from around the globe.
- [21:47]
Myrlie Evers
In just a few minutes, you might hear how democracy is holding up in South Korea or meet Indian monkeys that have turned to crime. We don't go around the world.
- [21:56]
David Biancooli
We're already there.
- [21:58]
Myrlie Evers
Listen to the State of the World podcast from npr.
- [22:04]
Joy Reid
One of the fights Medgar and Murley had was over dinner guests, because he was always bringing home people from the NAACP and sometimes celebrities like Lena Horne, and she was expected to cook an extra dinner for them. And she said, we do not have the money for this. We're struggling. And he accused her of not knowing how to manage the money well, which just infuriated her because she was very, very careful with money. And is this the time that they actually came to blows?
- [22:34]
Myrlie Evers
Absolutely. This is one of the most sort of, you know, striking and volatile sort of parts of their marriage. So at one point she says to him, we're poor. We don't have the money to do this. And he accused her of not managing the money well. And she got so angry that she hauled off and she grabbed a frying pan and hit him with it, and he struck her back. And she was so shocked at this slap that it kind of made both of them stun into silence. And this was the low point of their marriage. They wound up driving to her aunt and her mom's house. They were at that point living together because her grandma was getting older, and they were talking about divorcing, and they were at the point where they thought, maybe we can't do this. And it was a member of the senior NAACP leadership who was like a father to them, who actually counseled them as, like, a marriage counselor and surrogate father. And so there was a point at which they just decided they were going to try to make it work. And she decided she was going to try to make it work and support his work. And that came at the very, very end, really, not long before he died. The final year of his life was when she finally accepted that this was his mission.
- [23:48]
Joy Reid
One day or night, I forget which, it was when Medgar was working, Murley was at home with the children, and the house was firebombed. A Molotov cocktail was thrown through the window. She was pregnant at the time. How did she respond when she realized what was happening and the house started to catch on fire?
- [24:10]
Myrlie Evers
Well, Murlie, you know, is starting to doze off. She hears this crash and goes out and sees fire on her front lawn. Obviously, she's incredibly startled. And there had been these cars that would pass by slowly rolling in front of the house day after day after day. And this time, someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail out of one of them. So at first, of course, she was terrified. Her next door neighbor, who was a good friend of hers, Jean Wells, Runs out, and the two of them start turning the fire hose on the flames, and they put them out. Luckily, the children didn't even wake up. But it really did bring home to her that the death threats were really coming to roost. And this was just weeks before Medgar was actually assassinated. So it was a horrible premonition. But then she felt angry because when the police arrived, the white police officers, they questioned her looking at the gas can and essentially accusing her of doing it as a publicity stunt and faking it and then writing it off as just a joke that somebody had played. There was no empathy. There was clearly no determination to investigate. And it just brought home to her, once again, that there was no justice for black people in Mississippi.
- [25:23]
Joy Reid
Be when President Kennedy gave a speech asking Congress to enact what basically became the Civil Rights act of 1964 after Kennedy's assassination. So when Kennedy gave this speech, you know, asking Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities that were open to the public and to seek greater protection for the right to vote and more fully enforce the Supreme Court's ruling to desegregate the schools that just like flared up racist attacks in the South. And so it was a win for Medgar Evers and the movement, but it also increased the threats, right?
- [26:00]
Myrlie Evers
Absolutely. And, you know, the Klan absolutely sent a message in assassinating Medgar Evers literally hours after that speech. The thing that President Kennedy said that I think stung the racist south the most is that he said not only did he believe that black citizens had the right to equal treatment and to equal access to accommodations, but that he planned to make it so with legislation. He promised to pass a bill. Now, Medgar had actually been preparing his testimony to go to Washington to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about pushing for such a bill. Part of the work that he was doing and part of the Constant telegrams to D.C. were demanding that they do something. And one of the things they wanted done was a bill. And so, you know, the message that was sent in the hours after that speech was that we're going to exact retribution. And there were actually three attacks that took place, or at least one that did not come to fruition. But they did them so close in time that the FBI believed that these multiple attacks were a message from the Klan, including the assassination of Medgar Evers.
- [27:23]
Joy Reid
The assassination happened one night while Murely and the children were home. They were in bed. She was expecting her husband. She hears this loud gunshot. She, you know, she recognizes this is trouble. You Know, runs to the door and finds her. Her husband's body at the threshold of the door. And he's bleeding. And it looks like he's bleeding out, which he was. Tell us more about what, you know, about that night.
- [27:57]
Myrlie Evers
Well, you know, the children were. They got to stay up, you know, the three Everest children. Well, Van was a baby. He was only three. But the two older children were allowed to sit up and watch President Kennedy's speech. And they were so proud to hear the speech because it used and echoed some of the language that their own dad had given in his landmark speech that he gave on Mississippi television, which was. Had never happened. People had never seen a black person, you know, speak on television before. And to hear President Kennedy echoing their father's words felt so great to them. And so they were excited and they were allowed then to stay up a little later, the older two, who were 9 and 8, to watch a little bit more TV, a little bit of entertainment TV before their dad came home. And a little after midnight, they hear their father's car pull up, and they're excited because he would normally bring them home sweets or Cracker Jacks, you know, something. A little gift when he would come home. And so they were excited, thinking, oh, what's he gonna bring us? And all of a sudden, they heard the shot, and it wakes Myrlee up, who had been lying down on her bed. They were all in her room watching tv, and she was holding Van, and he had all. She had started to doze off. It startles her awake, and all of the family kind of go to the door. Now, at first, the kids did what they were. They went to the floor. They did what their father had taught them. But when they hear their mother scream as she makes it to the door and sees her husband lying in the carport, this horrifying scream makes all the children run to her. And so they're all standing there watching him try to drag himself in this tremendous pool of blood that's later described as if somebody had butchered a hog. And he's got his key out in his hand and he's trying to get to the door, but he can't. And she's got. Got her little children standing there screaming, you know, begging him to get up. And then they hear a. They had heard a second shot, which they thought might be the gunman coming to kill them all. But it turns out that was Mr. Wells, the next door neighbor, shooting in the air to scare the gunman away. And Mr. Wells and their neighbor across the street whose husband was Murley's other best friend. They come with another neighbor and they put Medgar on the mattress of Rena, the little girl's bed, and they put him on that mattress and take him the hospital. And Murley never saw or spoke with him again until she saw him in a casket.
- [30:27]
Joy Reid
There was a really large funeral procession after he died, and there was nearly a police riot because there were so many people. Would you describe that?
- [30:38]
Myrlie Evers
You know, it was a tremendous outpouring. You know, some 5,000 people came and they packed into the auditorium, the space where they usually did their mass meetings. But it was over capacity. It was blazing hot, almost 100 degrees in Mississippi, and people were outside who couldn't get in. And then afterward, they had gotten permission, the organizers of the funeral, to do a peaceful march with him because his body was going to be taken to a train station so that it could be sent to Washington, D.C. so he could be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, something that also caused lots of rage among white supremacists in the United States. But this peaceful procession quickly turned violent when some of the young people who were marching at the back began to sing freedom songs.
- [31:25]
Joy Reid
They were prohibited from singing at this funeral procession?
- [31:28]
Myrlie Evers
Absolutely. They were told they could only do a quiet, mournful march and they were not to sing freedom songs at all. But these young people started singing this Little Light of Mine, and it was Medgar's favorite freedom song. And once that started, the batons started flying and the police reacted violently and started beating marchers, who then started running toward downtown Jackson. And before long, it was nearly a.
- [31:54]
Terry Gross
Rock it Joy Reid speaking with Terry Gross last year. Her book about Medgar and Myrlie Evers is called Medgar and Merlie. More after a break. This is FRESH air.
- [32:06]
Myrlie Evers
Oh, hey there. I'm Brittany Luce, and I don't know, maybe this is a little out of pocket to say, but I think you should listen to my podcast. It's called It's Been a Minute and I love it. And I think you will, too. Over the past couple months, over 100,000 new listeners started tuning in. Find out why. Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast from NPR today. These days there is a lot of news.
- [32:32]
Joy Reid
It can be hard to keep up.
- [32:33]
Myrlie Evers
With what it means for you, your family and your community. Consider this from NPR is a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and.
- [32:44]
Joy Reid
Provide the context, backstory and analysis you.
- [32:48]
Myrlie Evers
Need to understand our rapidly changing world Listen to the Consider this podcast from npr. Having news at your fingertips is great.
- [32:55]
David Biancooli
But sometimes you need an escape and.
- [32:58]
Myrlie Evers
That'S where Short Wave comes in. We're a joy filled science podcast driven by wonder and curiosity that will get.
- [33:04]
David Biancooli
You out of your head and in.
- [33:05]
Myrlie Evers
Touch with the world around you.
- [33:08]
Joy Reid
Listen now to Short Wave, the science podcast from npr. You have a whole chapter called the Rules for a Civil Rights Widow. What were the quote, rules she had to learn or play by or create because she was like the first famous civil rights widow.
- [33:35]
Myrlie Evers
Right. So Myrlie Evers, you know, had to write this playbook for herself because Medgar evers was assassinated two years before Malcolm X and five years before Dr. King. So there really wasn't another person she could, you know, use as a template. The only thing closest to it was Mamie Till Mobley. But Mamie Till was a mom, not a widow. And, you know, she also wanted to ensure that she was able to establish Medgar's legacy. And so anything you did, if you weren't dressed in certain way, if you weren't properly demure, if you seemed angry rather than just in grieving, if you seemed too loud or too soft or too anything too, you know, but especially too angry, she knew that it would derail what she genuinely believed that Maker deserved, which is to have his legacy established for the sacrifice that he had made.
- [34:35]
Joy Reid
She both became famous, you know, very quickly because of the assassination and also very depressed. It's a difficult combination to deal with depression and fame at the same time. And she's of course in mourning.
- [34:57]
Myrlie Evers
Absolutely. And you know, living in that house made it worse. Right. Because, you know, that house had been designed for security. It's the only house on this block that used to be called Guynes street at the time. And it was designed with no front door specifically for security. You had to come in the side door so that they could see who was coming. And so she already lived with this constant threat, this fear of threat. And then it happened. The thing they had feared the most happened. And she had to deal with that publicly because she's now a public figure. You have, you know, she'd walk out her front door and Dan Rather would be standing there with old CBS group wanting to interview her. They were constantly in her house, in and out of her house. She had a Life magazine photographer following her all around as she's preparing to bury her husband. She couldn't bury him in the small plot that they had bought in Mississippi. It had to be done in D.C. so he'd be this sort of publicly buried person where she couldn't just go and sit with him. And it was painful for her. And she some days didn't want to get out of bed. She was using sleeping pills to try to get to sleep at night. And she was just lost in this sea of anger and rage and depression. And there were moments where she couldn't get out of it.
- [36:12]
Joy Reid
But she does kind of overcome the depression. She becomes an activist. She becomes an in demand public speaker. Eventually she becomes the board chair of the naacp. And she gets a lot of accolades. She's like Woman of the year in Ms. Magazine in 1998, one of the hundred most fascinating black women of the 20th century in Ebony in 1998. What came first for you? Wanting to write a book about the Evers or meeting Myrlie Evers and deciding.
- [36:45]
Myrlie Evers
I should write a book meeting Myrlie Evers, Merle Evers Williams. Now she did fall in love again, but Medgar Evers was clearly the love of her life. And that's what she told me. That actually was the impetus for this book. The profundity of that love, the intensity of it, even 60 years later, is actually kind of mind blowing when you talk to. And I thought that was worthy of writing more about. And I also do feel that Medgar Evers is given short shrift in our historical memory. This was a great man. This was an incredibly brave man. And we live in an age of so much cowardice as people refused to stand up for our democracy in even small ways because they were afraid of a tweet, you know, a mean tweet. And these people were facing the claim a statewide spy agency and the constant threat of being destitute. And they did it. And they were 20 somethings and 30 somethings who had this incredible courage. And so I wanted to write a book about love and about courage. And hopefully that's what I did.
- [37:49]
Joy Reid
Joy Reid, it's been great to talk with you. Congratulations on your new book and thank you so much for coming to FRESH air.
- [37:55]
Myrlie Evers
Thank you for having me.
- [37:57]
Terry Gross
Joy Reid spoke with Terry Gross last year. Year. The former MSNBC host's book is called Medgar and Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America. It's now out in paperback.
- [38:25]
Myrlie Evers
Let it shine, let it shine, Let it shine, let it shine Everywhere I go I'm going to let it shine Everywhere I go I'm going to let it shine Everywhere I go I'm going to let it shine Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine I'm gonna let it shine I'm gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
- [39:16]
Terry Gross
I got the light of peace and love coming up. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews a new supernatural thriller from director Ryan Coogler. This is FRESH air. Imagine, if you will, a show from NPR that's not like npr, a show that focuses not on the important but the stupid, which features stories about people smuggling animals in their pants, incompetent criminals and ridiculous science studies. And call it Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, because the good names were taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell.
- [39:45]
Myrlie Evers
Yes, that is what it is called.
- [39:47]
Terry Gross
Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [39:51]
Myrlie Evers
This month, Short Wave is diving into the science of psychedelics. Chances are you've heard of drugs like LSD and magic mushrooms or psilocybin. Now some researchers are making new drugs inspired by psychedelic compounds, with a key difference they're taking out the trip. We just move things around a little.
- [40:09]
Joy Reid
Bit here and there here about how.
- [40:11]
Myrlie Evers
It works on Short Wave, the science podcast from npr.
- [40:16]
Terry Gross
Our film critic Justin Chang says the new supernatural thriller Sinners is one of the more interesting and audacious movies to emerge from a major studio so far this year. It's the latest collaboration between director Ryan Coogler and actor Michael B. Jordan, who worked together previously in Fruitvale Station, Black Panther and Creed. Sinners also features Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo and Jack O'Connor and opens in theaters today. Here is Justin's review.
- [40:45]
David Biancooli
You can be a fan of Creed and Black Panther. I certainly am, and still feel a sense of relief that the director, Ryan Coogler, has left franchise filmmaking behind, at least for now. With those earlier movies, Coogler brought a distinctly personal touch to familiar genre material. His latest effort, Sinner Sinners, is a genre movie, too, with some pulpy narrative beats you'll recognize. But it's also his first original script in ages, and it feels wicked and sexy and darkly entrancing in ways that he hasn't been able to fully embrace until now. Sinners is set in 1930s Mississippi, and it's awash in gorgeous music, turbulent romance, Pan African spiritualism and, by the end, buckets of blood. It's an awful lot of movie, and it makes most of the year's other studio releases so far look anemic by comparison. Sinners also finds Coogler reuniting with Michael B. Jordan, whom he's worked with consistently since their 2013 drama Fruitvale Station. They doubled down on their collaboration here, quite literally. Jordan plays twin brothers named Smoke and Stack, who are notorious fixtures of Chicago's criminal underworld. It's 1932, and they just returned to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi. As one of them, Riley suggests the north isn't all that much less racist than the South. Smoke and Stack plan to open a juke joint where other black men and women can drink, drink, dance and gamble the night away. Coogler spends roughly the first half of the film fleshing out this world and its characters and showing us the tremendous group effort it takes to launch a business. Miles Caton is a standout as the twins cousin Sammy, a gifted blues musician who's recruited to perform. He's thrown together with Delta Slim, a harmonica and piano virtuoso played by a delightfully irascible Delroy Lindo. And Wunmi Mosaku is wonderful as Annie, a local medicine woman whom Smoke loved but abandoned years earlier. After some verbal sparring and reconciliatory sex, she agrees to cook for the grand opening. Sinners is so atmospheric, richly textured and gorgeous to watch. See it in IMAX if you can. Can that. It's almost a disappointment when it veers into supernatural territory. But if the horror beats prove a touch derivative, Coogler builds suspense with shivery assurance. And he waits until just the right moment, the juke joint's grand opening, for all hell to break loose. In this scene, Annie realizes that the bouncer, played by Omar Benson Miller, is acting strangely. He's standing right outside the door and won't enter unless someone invites him in. She recognizes this as a classic tenet of vampire lore.
- [43:55]
Terry Gross
What y'all doing? Just step aside and let me own in now.
- [44:00]
Myrlie Evers
Why you need him to do that?
- [44:04]
Joy Reid
You big and strong enough to push past us?
- [44:06]
Myrlie Evers
Well, that wouldn't be too polite, now, would it, miss Annie?
- [44:10]
Terry Gross
I don't know why I'm talking to you anyway.
- [44:13]
Myrlie Evers
Don't talk to him. You talking to me right now.
- [44:16]
David Biancooli
Why?
- [44:16]
Myrlie Evers
You can't just walk your big ass up in here without an invite, huh? Go ahead, admit to it.
- [44:24]
Terry Gross
Admit to what?
- [44:26]
Myrlie Evers
That you dead.
- [44:29]
Terry Gross
So you listening to this now?
- [44:33]
David Biancooli
Now we out here playing games, telling.
- [44:36]
Myrlie Evers
Ghost stories in place of doing what.
- [44:38]
David Biancooli
We ought to do.
- [44:41]
Myrlie Evers
And what is it we supposed to be doing? Being kind to one another and being polite.
- [44:49]
David Biancooli
Coogler is clearly paying homage here to the legendary horror filmmaker George Romero, not only in his exuberant B movie splatter, but also in the way he gives the action a sharp sociopolitical edge. Even before the carnage begins, the director is clearly fascinated by the racial dynamics of the period. Li Zhenli and Yao play a couple who own a grocery store, one of many such Chinese run businesses that served black communities in the segregated South. Hailee Steinfeld turns up as Stack's former flame, and although sparks soon reignite, the movie harbors zero sentimental illusions about how their ill fated interracial romance will play out. The entire film can be read as a grimly fantastical parable of black survival. At one point, someone wonders if vampirism might actually be preferable to white supremacy. It's not a facetious question, and Smoke and Stack themselves might disagree on the answer. They're fairly similar, as twins could go, but Michael B. Jordan subtly captures their crucial difference in temperament and worldview. Stack is the gentler, more trusting one, while Smoke is far warier and more guarded. How they both choose to confront evil will change and define them forever. I've forgotten to mention that on top of all that, Sinners is practically a full blown musical with a hypnotic blues heavy score by Ludwig Goransson and a blunt yet potent message about the spiritual power of song. Early on in the Juke Joint, the characters give themselves over to the ecstasy of Sammy's music, and Coogler follows suit with an imaginative, dreamlike sequence that bridges eras and continents, placing the West African dancers of the ancient past on a continuum with the hip hop artists of the future. Music, Kugler reminds us, can collapse boundaries between time and space. So, it turns out, can some movies.
- [47:04]
Terry Gross
Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed Sinners, the new thriller starring Michael B. Jordan, on Monday's show. Actor Noah Wiley of the popular TV series the Pit, about drama and chaos in a Pittsburgh hospital emergency room. The show has earned a following among ER doctors for the accuracy of its portrayals of emergency medicine. Wiley plays a veteran doctor plagued by PTSD from the early days of COVID I hope you can join us.
- [47:53]
David Biancooli
To.
- [47:53]
Terry Gross
Keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram @NPRFreshAir. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shurrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper for Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley. DAVID I'm David Biancooli.
- [48:39]
Myrlie Evers
Since Donald Trump took office in January, a lot has happened. The White House Budget Office ordered a pause on all federal grants and loans.
- [48:47]
Joy Reid
The impact of the Trump administration's tariffs.
- [48:50]
Myrlie Evers
Is already being felt in President Trump's.
- [48:52]
Joy Reid
Efforts to radically remake the federal government.
- [48:55]
Myrlie Evers
The NPR Politics podcast covers it all. Keep up with what's happening in Washington and beyond with the NPR Politics Podcast. Podcast. Listen every day at Planet Money.
- [49:05]
David Biancooli
We'll take you from a race to make rum in the Caribbean. Our rum from a quality standpoint, is the best in the world.
- [49:11]
Terry Gross
To the labs dreaming up the most advanced microchips.
- [49:15]
Myrlie Evers
It's very rare for people to go inside to the back rooms of New York's Diamond District. What are you looking for? The stupid guy Here, they're all smart.
- [49:23]
Terry Gross
Don't worry about Planet Money from npr. We go to the Story and take you along with us wherever you get your podcasts.