Proposal could make Evers home part of National Park Service
(AP) — The home where Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963 gets thousands of visitors each year, operates as a college-owned museum and relies on state grants and private donations for maintenance funds.
Republican senators Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker said Friday they've filed a bill that would authorize a study on the national significance of the Evers home, as a step toward making it part of the Park Service.
"Medgar Evers was a pivotal civil rights leader, who fought for justice and helped change Mississippi and the nation for the better," Cochran said in a news release.
Byron De La Beckwith, a white segregationist, was tried twice on murder charges in 1964, but all-white juries deadlocked without either convicting or acquitting him.