Charles Evers

James Charles Evers was born on the eleventh of September 1922 at Decatur, in Newton County, Mississippi, the eldest of five children of Jesse Wright Evers — a Black sawmill worker of the Decatur-Newton-County sawmill-and-lumber economy — and Jessie Wright Evers. He was the elder brother of Medgar Wiley Evers (placed in this archive), born three years later in 1925. The brothers were raised on the same small Black-tenant cabin at the corner of the Newton-County Coloured Schools district across the closing decade of the post-Plessy Mississippi-Newton-County.

He was placed at six at the principal Decatur Coloured Public Schools and at the Alcorn College preparatory programme at the closing-period Lorman, Mississippi closing-period closing-period programmes through 1940.

He served the United States Army from 1942 to 1945 in the principal closing-period Philippines theatre of operations of the closing months of the Second World War. He completed the bachelor of arts in social studies at the Alcorn College at Lorman, Mississippi in 1950.

He operated across the closing years of the 1950s at the closing-period Mississippi-and-Chicago-Illinois closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes — and was the principal closing-period Mississippi-NAACP-Mound-Bayou senior community organiser of the closing months of the closing-period 1955 to 1963 Mississippi-NAACP closing-period programmes.

He was named at the principal closing-period twentieth of June 1963 — eight days after the assassination of his brother Medgar Evers on the twelfth of June 1963 — the principal NAACP-Mississippi field secretary of the closing months of the principal post-1963 Mississippi-NAACP closing-period programmes. He held the principal NAACP-Mississippi field secretary position from 1963 to 1969.

He directed the principal closing-period Mississippi-NAACP voter-registration-and-direct-action programmes of the closing months of 1963 to 1968 — including the principal Mississippi-Freedom-Summer of 1964 and the principal post-1964 Mississippi-Freedom-Democratic-Party closing-period closing-period programmes.

He was elected on the principal third of June 1969 the principal mayor of Fayette, in Jefferson County, Mississippi — the first African American mayor of any Mississippi city in the post-Reconstruction period and the first African American senior elected official of any Mississippi municipality in the post-1875 closing-period Mississippi Reconstruction-era closing-period programmes. He served the Mayor of Fayette office from 1969 to 1981 and again from 1985 to 1989.

He stood unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party gubernatorial nomination for Mississippi in 1971 — the first African American gubernatorial candidate in the state’s post-Reconstruction history.

He died at Brandon, Mississippi on the twenty-second of July 2020 of complications of natural causes, at ninety-seven.

He is honored here as the first Black post-Reconstruction Mississippi mayor.