Byron De La Beckwith Jr. (November 9, 1920 – January 21, 2001) was an American murderer,

white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...

and member of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Cat ...

from

Greenwood, Mississippi Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverp ...

. He murdered the

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...

leader

Medgar Evers Medgar Wiley Evers (; July 2, 1925June 12, 1963) was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, who was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith. Evers, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who had served i ...

on June 12, 1963. Two trials in 1964 on that charge, with all-white Mississippi juries, resulted in

hung juries A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. Hung jury usually results in the case being tried again. ...

. In 1994, he was tried by the state in a new trial based on new evidence. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Early life and career

De La Beckwith was born in

Colusa, California Colusa is a city and county seat of Colusa County, California, located in the Sacramento Valley region of the Central Valley. The population was 5,971 at the 2010 census, up from 5,402 at the 2000 census. Colusi originates from the local Coru N ...

, the son of Byron De La Beckwith Sr., who was the town's

postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...

and Susan Southworth Yerger. His father died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...

when he was 5. One year later, he and his mother settled in

, to be near family. His mother died of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, mali ...

when he was 12 years old, leaving him orphaned. He was raised by his maternal uncle William Greene Yerger and his wife. He was related by marriage to the socialist author

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...

, and attended the prestigious southern prep school in Bell Buckle, Tennessee called The Webb School. In January 1942, De La Beckwith enlisted in the

U.S. Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through co ...

, serving as a machine gunner in the Pacific theater of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. He fought in the

Battle of Guadalcanal The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by American forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the ...

and was shot in the waist during the

Battle of Tarawa The Battle of Tarawa was fought on 20–23 November 1943 between the United States and Japan at the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands, and was part of Operation Galvanic, the U.S. invasion of the Gilberts. Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, ...

. He was honorably discharged in August 1945. After serving in the Marine Corps, De La Beckwith moved to

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

, where he married Mary Louise Williams. The couple relocated to Mississippi, where they settled in his hometown of Greenwood. They had a son together, Delay De La Beckwith. De La Beckwith and Williams divorced, and he later married Thelma Lindsay Neff. De La Beckwith worked as a salesman for most of his life, selling tobacco, fertilizer, wood stoves, and other goods. In 1954, following the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruling in '' Brown v. Board of Education'' that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, he joined his local White Citizens' Council, and was also a member of the

Murder of Medgar Evers

On June 12, 1963, at age 42, De La Beckwith murdered

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&n ...

and

leader

shortly after the activist arrived home in

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Qu ...

. Beckwith had positioned himself across the street with a rifle, and he shot Evers in the back. Evers died an hour later, aged 37. Myrlie Evers, his wife, and his three children, James, Reena, and Darrell Evers, were home at the time of the assassination. Their son Darrell recalled the night: "We were ready to greet him, because every time he came home it was special for us. He was traveling a lot at that time. All of a sudden, we heard a shot. We knew what it was."

Trials

The state twice prosecuted De La Beckwith for murder in 1964, but both trials ended with

. Mississippi had effectively disenfranchised black voters since 1890, so they were in practice excluded from serving on

juries A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England duri ...

, whose members were drawn from voter rolls. During the second trial,

Ross Barnett Ross Robert Barnett (January 22, 1898November 6, 1987) was the Governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a Southern Democrat who supported racial segregation. Early life Background and learning Born in Standing Pine in Leake Count ...

, Democratic Governor of Mississippi at the time of the assassination, shook hands with De La Beckwith in the courtroom. The White Citizens' Council paid De La Beckwith's legal expenses in both his 1964 trials. In January 1966, De La Beckwith, along with a number of other members of the

White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a Ku Klux Klan organization which is active in the United States. It originated in Mississippi and Louisiana in the early 1960s under the leadership of Samuel Bowers, its first Imperial Wizard. The White K ...

, was subpoenaed by the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative United States Congressional committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives, create ...

to testify about Klan activities. Although De La Beckwith gave his name when asked by the committee (other witnesses, such as Samuel Bowers, invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to that question), he answered no other substantive questions. In the following years, De La Beckwith became a leader in the

segregationist Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Interna ...

Phineas Priesthood The Phineas Priesthood, also called Phineas Priests, are American domestic terrorists who adhere to the ideology which was set forth in the 1990 book ''Vigilantes of Christendom: The Story of the Phineas Priesthood'' by Richard Kelly Hoskins. The ...

, an offshoot of the white supremacist

Christian Identity Christian Identity (also known as Identity Christianity) is an interpretation of Christianity which advocates the belief that only Celtic and Germanic peoples, such as the Anglo-Saxon, Nordic nations, or Aryan people and people of kindred blood, ...

movement. The group was known for its hostility toward African Americans,

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, and foreigners. According to Delmar Dennis, who acted as a key witness for the prosecution at the 1994 trial, De La Beckwith boasted of his role in the death of Medgar Evers at several Ku Klux Klan rallies and similar gatherings in the years following his mistrials. In 1967, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party's nomination for

Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi The lieutenant governor of Mississippi is the second-highest ranking executive officer in Mississippi, below the governor of Mississippi. The office of lieutenant governor was established when Mississippi became a state, abolished for a few decade ...

. In 1969, De La Beckwith's previous charges were dismissed. In 1973, informants alerted the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice ...

that he planned to murder A.I. Botnick, director of the

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

-based B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League. The attack was a racially motivated retaliation for comments that Botnick had made about white Southerners and race relations. Following several days of surveillance,

New Orleans Police Department The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has primary responsibility for law enforcement in New Orleans, Louisiana. The department's jurisdiction covers all of Orleans Parish, while the city is divided into eight police districts. The NOPD has ...

officers stopped De La Beckwith as he was traveling by car on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge to New Orleans. Among the contents of his vehicle were several loaded firearms, a map with highlighted directions to Botnick's house, and a

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern Germany, and patented in 1867. It rapidl ...

time bomb. On August 1, 1975, De La Beckwith was convicted of

conspiracy to commit murder Conspiracy to murder is a statutory offence defined by the intent to commit murder. England and Wales The offence of conspiracy to murder was created in statutory law by section 4 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and retained as ...

; he served nearly three years at the

Angola Prison The Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola, and nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the South", "The Angola Plantation" and "The Farm"Sutton, Keith "Catfish".Out There: Angola angling. ''ESPN Outdoors''. May 31, 2006. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. ...

in Louisiana from May 1977 until he was paroled in January 1980. Just before entering prison to serve his sentence, De La Beckwith was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

by Reverend Dewey "Buddy" Tucker as a minister in the Temple Memorial Baptist Church, a Christian Identity congregation in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the stat ...

. In the 1980s, the Jackson ''

Clarion-Ledger ''The Clarion Ledger'' is an American daily newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi. It is the second-oldest company in the state of Mississippi, and is one of the few newspapers in the nation that continues to circulate statewide. It is an operating d ...

'' published reports on its investigation of De La Beckwith's trials in the 1960s. It found that the

Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (also called the Sov-Com) was a state agency in Mississippi from 1956 to 1977 tasked with fighting desegregation and controlling civil rights activism. It was overseen by the Governor of Mississippi. T ...

, a state agency supported by residents' taxes and purportedly protecting the image of the state, had assisted De La Beckwith's attorneys in his second trial. The commission had worked against the civil rights movement in numerous ways. In this case, it used state resources to investigate members of the jury pool during '' voir dire'' to aid the defense in picking a sympathetic jury. These findings of illegality contributed to a retrial of De La Beckwith by the state in 1994.

1994 trial for Evers murder

Myrlie Evers, who later became the third woman to chair the

, refused to abandon her husband's case. When new documents showed that jurors in the previous case were investigated illegally and screened by a state agency, she pressed authorities to reopen the case. In the 1980s, the reporting by Jerry Mitchell of the Jackson ''

'' about the earlier Beckwith trials resulted in the state mounting a new investigation. It ultimately initiated a third prosecution, based on this and other new evidence. By this time, De La Beckwith was living in Walden, Tennessee, just outside

Signal Mountain, Tennessee Signal Mountain is a town in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. The town is a suburb of Chattanooga and is located on Walden Ridge. "Signal Mountain" is used as a colloquial name for the part of Walden Ridge close to the town. The town ...

, a suburb of

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020 ...

. He was extradited to Mississippi for trial at the

Hinds County Hinds County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. With its county seats (Raymond and the state's capital, Jackson), Hinds is the most populous county in Mississippi with a 2020 census population of 227,742 residents. Hinds Co ...

Courthouse in Jackson. Before his trial, the 71-year-old

had asked the justices to dismiss the case against him on the grounds that it violated his rights to a

speedy trial In criminal law, the right to a speedy trial is a human right under which it is asserted that a government prosecutor may not delay the trial of a criminal suspect arbitrarily and indefinitely. Otherwise, the power to impose such delays would ef ...

, due process and protection from

double jeopardy In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...

. The

Mississippi Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Mississippi is the highest court in the state of Mississippi. It was established in the first constitution of the state following its admission as a State of the Union in 1817 and was known as the High Court of Errors and A ...

ruled against his motion by a 4–3 vote, and the case was scheduled to be heard in January 1994. During this third trial, the murder weapon was presented, an Enfield .30-06 caliber rifle, with Beckwith's fingerprints. Beckwith claimed that the gun was stolen from his house. He listed his health problems,

high blood pressure Hypertension (HTN or HT), also known as high blood pressure (HBP), is a long-term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated. High blood pressure usually does not cause symptoms. Long-term high bl ...

, lack of energy and kidney problems, saying, "I need a list to recite everything I suffer from, and I hate to complain because I'm not the complaining type". On February 5, 1994, a jury composed of eight African-Americans and four whites,

convicted In law, a conviction is the verdict reached by a court of law finding a defendant guilty of a crime. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of " not proven", which is co ...

De La Beckwith of

first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially t ...

for killing Medgar Evers. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. New evidence included testimony that during the three decades since the crime had occurred, De La Beckwith had boasted of having committed the murder on multiple occasions-including at a Klan rally. The physical evidence was essentially the same as that presented during the first two trials. De La Beckwith appealed against the guilty verdict, but the

upheld the conviction in 1997. The court said that the 31-year lapse between the murder and De La Beckwith's conviction did not deny him a fair trial. De La Beckwith sought

judicial review Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incomp ...

in the

, but his petition for

certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

was denied. On January 21, 2001, De La Beckwith died after he was transferred from prison to the

University of Mississippi Medical Center University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) is the health sciences campus of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and is located in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. UMMC, also referred to as the Medical Center, is the state's only aca ...

in Jackson, Mississippi. He was 80 years old. He had suffered from

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, h ...

, and other ailments for some time.

Representation in other media

* ''Where Is the Voice Coming From?'' (1963), a short story by

Eudora Welty Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel '' The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerou ...

, was published in ''The New Yorker'' on July 6, 1963. Welty, who was from Jackson, Mississippi, later said: "Whoever the murderer is, I know him: not his identity, but his coming about, in this time and place. That is, I ought to have learned by now, from here, what such a man, intent on such a deed, had going on in his mind. I wrote his story—my fiction—in the first person: about that character's point of view." It was published before De La Beckwith's arrest. So accurate was her portrayal that the magazine changed several details in the story before publication for legal reasons. * Byron De La Beckwith was the subject of the 1963

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

song "

Only a Pawn in Their Game "Only a Pawn in Their Game" is a song written by Bob Dylan about the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 12, 1963. Showing support for African-Americans during the American Civil Rights Movement, the ...

", which deplores Evers' murder and attempts to minimize De La Beckwith as "only a pawn in the game" as a poor white man manipulated by Southern politicians. * In 1991, the murder of Evers and first trials of Beckwith were the basis of the episode titled "

Sweet, Sweet Blues "Sweet, Sweet Blues" is an episode of the NBC drama series '' In the Heat of the Night'', starring Carroll O'Connor as Chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Detective Virgil Tibbs. ''In the Heat of the Night'' was based on the 1965 novel by ...

", written by author

William James Royce William James Royce is an American playwright/director, screenwriter, and novelist. Career Television William Royce began his television career writing for the NBC television series '' In the Heat of the Night'', starring Emmy Award winn ...

for the NBC television series '' In the Heat of the Night''. In the episode, actor

James Best Jewel Franklin Guy (July 26, 1926 – April 6, 2015), known professionally as James Best, was an American television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. Duri ...

plays a character based on De La Beckwith, an aging Klansman who appears to have gotten away with murder. * The feature film '' Ghosts of Mississippi'' (1996) tells the story of the murder and 1994 trial.

James Woods James Howard Woods (born April 18, 1947) is an American actor. He is known for his work in various film, stage, and television productions. He started his career in minor roles on and off- Broadway. In 1972, he appeared in ''The Trial of the ...

' performance as De La Beckwith was nominated for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

. * In 2001,

Bobby DeLaughter Robert Burt DeLaughter Sr. (born February 28, 1954 in Vicksburg, Mississippi) is a former state prosecutor and then Hinds County Circuit Judge. He prosecuted and secured the conviction in 1994 of Byron De La Beckwith, charged with the murder of the ...

published his memoir of the case and trial, ''Never Too Late: A Prosecutor’s Story of Justice in the Medgar Evers Trial.''''Never Too Late: A Prosecutor's Story of Justice in the Medgar Evers Case.'' New York:

Simon and Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pub ...

. September 16, 2001. . Retrieved June 13, 2013.

References

External links

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