Medgar Evers

Medgar Wiley Evers served in the United States Army during the Second World War before becoming a leading civil-rights organiser in Mississippi. As the NAACP’s first field secretary in the state, he established branches, organised voter-registration campaigns, investigated racial violence and supported efforts to desegregate schools, public facilities and businesses.

Evers built Mississippi’s NAACP organisation, advanced voter registration and desegregation campaigns, and became an enduring symbol of the cost of civil-rights activism. Medgar Evers was born in Decatur, Mississippi, United States and died in Jackson, Mississippi, United States.

In Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, The assassination of Medgar Evers and the fear surrounding public challenges to segregation enter the narrative as documented historical events, while the central women and their book are fictional.