On the night of June 11, 1963, Byron de la Beckwith murdered Medgar Evers with a single shot. But how did he end up hiding in a bush across the street from the home of a civil rights leader?

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

Zinn, Howard. (1964) SNCC: The New Abolitionists. Beacon Press. Boston.

Mendelsohn, Jack. (1966) The martyrs : sixteen who gave their lives for racial justice. Harper & Row

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/06/12/issue.html

https://www.lodinews.com/features/vintage_lodi/article_426cb4b4-269e-5c6f-ba07-7e92ecf23142.html

https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/witnesses/medgarevers.htm

https://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/medgar-evers-and-the-origin-of-the-civil-rights-movement-in-mississippi

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~tnalhn/runawayslavenotices.htm

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/23/us/byron-de-la-beckwith-dies-killer-of-medgar-evers-was-80.html

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Last week, a federal judge ordered the Department of the Interior to stop implementation of a Trump executive order that would whitewash history at National Park sites. A leaked database shows the materials that parks employees had flagged for removal. They want to 'make America great' by erasing its past.

Sources & Further Reading:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/

https://www.doi.gov/document-library/secretary-order/so-3431-restoring-truth-and-sanity-american-history

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72285106/national-parks-conservation-association-v-department-of-the-interior/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72178941/city-of-philadelphia-v-burgum/

https://sites.google.com/umn.edu/save-our-signs/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ulzIcpjpyTKLa52DClUkUlcazJPdAryK0B0oKmA9TF8/

https://mississippitoday.org/2026/02/05/medgar-evers-killer-trump-says-stop-calling-him-racist/
https://mississippitoday.org/2026/02/05/visitor-brochures-returned-medgar-evers-home/

https://mississippitoday.org/2026/02/12/medgar-evers-home-omissions-to-story/

https://mississippitoday.org/2025/03/17/wwii-vet-medgar-evers-erased-from-arlington-cemetery-website/

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/brochures-calling-medgar-evers-killer-racist-still-available-at-evers-home/

https://www.nhpr.org/2013-08-12/van-evers-honors-his-father-in-his-own-way

https://abcnews.com/Politics/hegseth-announces-usns-harvey-milk-renamed-usns-oscar/story?id=123266490

https://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/medgar-evers-family-fights-efforts-to-strip-his-name-from-navy-vessel/

https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/02/national-park-service-plans-censor-brochures-murder-civil-rights-leader

https://npshistory.com/publications/memy/brochures/2021.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/16/philadelphia-trump-judge-slavery-history/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/us/politics/judge-national-parks-trump.html

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In 1980, Texas Klan Grand Dragon Louis Beam was running a paramilitary training camp outside of Houston. But they weren't just training klansmen for the race war. They ran a boy scout camp on the weekends.

Sources and further reading:

Belew, Kathleen. Bring the War Home : The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. Harvard University Press, 2018.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/518/993/2128255/

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/518/1017/2128803/

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/543/198/1460786/

https://www.nytimes.com/1980/11/30/archives/paramilitary-actions-irk-neighbors-of-texas-camp-charter.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/11/24/boy-scouts-taught-to-fire-weapons-strangle-opponents/1eec4466-569a-47a8-b2e1-ce60c763ffe7/

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/11/23/Charge-Klan-teaches-scouts-how-to-strangle-people/2641343803600/

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/11/24/Klan-member-trains-youths-at-paramilitary-camp/6144343890000/

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/11/25/A-mother-says-two-teen-age-Explorer-scouts-who-attended/4442343976400/

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/12/05/The-owner-of-a-10-acre-plot-of-land-used/1128344840400/

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