The smile on Byron (Delay) De La Beckwith's face never falters, even when he's admitting to his ongoing loyalty to the Ku Klux Klan, brandishing his handgun, discussing his father's imprisonment for the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, insisting that white people are God's own superior race, or even remembering how he once punched filmmaker (and Toronto-born former civil-rights volunteer) Paul Saltzman in front of a Greenwood, Miss., courthouse in 1965. "No Marine leaves his weapon," he said. Mississippi Man Held for Murder j Of Negro Evers JACKSON, Miss, Byron de la Beckwith, white man, was held in Jackson jail today charged with the murder of Negro inte- gration leader Medgar Evers. He was married to Thelma . "[6], The state twice prosecuted De La Beckwith for murder in 1964, but both trials ended with hung juries. Myrlie Evers, his wife, and his three children, James, Reena, and Darrell Evers, were home at the time of the assassination. He murdered the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. In January 1966, De La Beckwith, along with a number of other members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee to testify about Klan activities. Biography: Byron de la Beckwith is an American white supremacist and Klansman, best known for assassinating Medgar Evers, a civil rights leader, in 1963.He was charged but after two hung juries, was initially let off; only to be later successfully convicted in 1994 for murder. The two-day trial and jury verdict also set aside a deed from Mrs. Beckwith to Judy Skiba, the defendant in the case. "To the extent we have tended to think of this as a one-man nut operation, we were probably wrong.". Last edited on 25 February 2023, at 14:45, "Byron De La Beckwith Dies; Killer of Medgar Evers Was 80", "A Little Abnormal: The Life of Byron De La Beckwith", "White supremacist convicted of killing Medgar Evers", "De La Beckwith v. State, 707 So. In 1973, informants alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he planned to murder A.I. One name he began to hear was Medgar Evers. 1994 trial for Evers murder. Ten years after his father's death, Byron De La Beckwith Jr. is sharing secrets, saying those behind NAACP leader Medgar Evers . 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Attorney Mitchell Byrd said Ms. Skiba had befriended Mrs. Beckwith after she (Ms. Skiba) was released from prison in Georgia. According to NPR, Mitchell found evidence that the highest levels of Mississippis state government had aided Beckwith and his defense team during his first trials through tax-payer funded agency called the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. On August 1, 1975, De La Beckwith was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder; he served nearly three years at the Angola Prison in Louisiana from May 1977 until he was paroled in January 1980. Their details were different now and so were their times. But Dittmer suggested that after shooting Evers, Beckwith may have panicked and ditched the gun. Later, he married Thelma Lindsay Neff, and the pair moved back to Greenwood, where he became active in the Ku Klux Klan. I view my job as a reporter to assemble whatever evidence exists and put it out there so everyone can see it. He was sentenced to life in prison, according to the Associated Press. The cooler climes of this mountainous region have long made it a haven from the heat and humidity of Chattanooga, the city in the valley. His mother died of lung cancer when he was 12 years old,[3] leaving him orphaned. It didn't hit the spot that the shooter was shooting at. After Seales conviction, we decided to join forces and form a group called the Civil Rights Cold Case Project. But there is a good sprinkling of "old mountain families," he said. He was raised by his maternal uncle William Greene Yerger and his wife. Best Of Grizzard: Tennessee's Lewis Grizzard? Nos. Of those men, "99 percent are dead," but the man he said he believes pulled the trigger is still alive. barry brent actor jamie iannone wife dixie claire townsend father But the former fertilizer salesman insisted he was 90 miles away, in Greenwood, when Evers was murdered. De La Beckwith was born in Colusa, California, the son of Byron De La Beckwith Sr., who was the town's postmaster and Susan Southworth Yerger. JACKSON, Miss. ), was the convicted murderer of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. They are Donald Henry of Old Fort, Tn., Sammy Boyd of Lakesite, Deana Johnson more, An officer responded to Comfort Inn at 2440 Williams St. where a man and woman were in a verbal disorder. He was sentenced to life in prison. Both those juries failed to convict. He was traveling a lot at that time. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. They do still have streetcars in Chicago, dont they?. Heres the story they started to tell: In the summer of 1964, a spy named Agent Y, pretending to be a civil rights worker, had infiltrated the Council of Federated Organizations. When he was sentenced in November, Byron De La Beckwith's son sat in the chamber wearing a Confederate flag pin on his red blazer. [4] He was honorably discharged in August 1945. Mississippi officials are preparing a formal request for his extradition. Mrs. Neff, the woman whom Mr. Beckwith married about eight years ago, is from one of the old mountain families, said Joanne Robinson, a secretary at Lookout Mountain Investment Enterprises who is a neighbor of the couple. On February 5, 1994, the long-delayed trial ended in the same courtroom where he had been tried 30 years earlier. Browse 14 byron_de_la_beckwith stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. Although his father had been a prosperous irrigation entrepreneur when he died on August 10, 1926, he left his young family deeply in debt. Byron De La Beckwith, Jr. (November 9, 1920 - January 21, 2001) was an American white supremacist and Klansman from Greenwood, Mississippi, who in 1994 was convicted of assassinating the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. #inline-recirc-item--id-d46ef99c-8c88-11e2-b06b-024c619f5c3d ~ .item:nth-child(5) { DeLaughter attracted worldwide attention in 1994 when he pursued and won - along with then-District Attorney Ed Peters - a case against Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers, a field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP. "For some people up here that sort of thing is just part of their identity. Some have responded with angry letters to the editor. A segregationist and member of the Ku Klux Klan, he shot and killed NAACP field secr. Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, who ordered the killings, once vowed the secrets of what happened that night and so many other dark nights in Mississippi would remain buried forever. Discover Byron de la Beckwith's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Photo by Jeff Guenther/The Associated Press. "Whites, colored and trash, and there's very little trash in Mississippi." . The smile on Byron (Delay) De La Beckwith's face never falters, even when he's admitting to his ongoing loyalty to the Ku Klux Klan, brandishing his handgun, discussing his father's imprisonment . We knew what it was.. Byron De La Beckwith, the white supremacist convicted after three decades and three trials of assassinating civil rights leader Medgar Evers, has died while serving life in prison. Town Distances Itself From Suspect in Evers Case, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/21/us/town-distances-itself-from-suspect-in-evers-case.html, Ronald Smothers, Special To the New York Times. After gaining the confidence of council leaders, he stole applications and photographs of incoming Freedom Summer volunteers. In the 1980s, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger published reports on its investigation of De La Beckwith's trials in the 1960s. When James Woods appeared on "Inside the Actors Studio", he explained how he looked for a way to play Byron de la Beckwith.He said that after watching and reading many interviews with the real Beckwith, he noticed how he used the "N" word with such ease and regularity and that this was clearly a totally natural and almost unthinking part of his speech and vocabulary. Still unaccounted for in the killing of the 37-year-old Evers were "others unknown," charged along with Beckwith in a separate federal . Thanks to the work of journalist Ben Greenberg who works out of his home near Boston, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been looking at the Klans 1964 killing of Clifton Walker near Natchez, Mississippi. In 1967, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party's nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi. But the relationship with Peters, his mentor, would come back to haunt DeLaughter. Byron De La Beckwith Jr. (November 9, 1920 - January 21, 2001) was an American murderer, a white supremacist and a member of the Ku Klux Klan from Greenwood, Mississippi.He murdered the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Born in California in 1920, Byron De La Beckwith grew up in Mississippi. When I asked him about the Evers family, Beckwith remarked, I care about them about as much as I do about a nigger getting run over by a streetcar in Chicago. McCarty, in character as as the hackneyed racist folk-singer Byron de la Vandal, recently recounted to a White Nationalist blog the story of his radicalization into neo-Nazi politics through the /pol/ discussion board on 4chan, and the cementing of his anti-Semitic belief system through reading "The Culture of Critique," an anti-semitic pseudo-academic book written by disgraced . Full online access to this resource is only available at the Library of Congress. During her journalism career, Katina has covered everything from the Mississippi murder trials of Byron De La Beckwith and Sam Bowers to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in Texas. He wouldn't reveal the names of the men he says were behind the assassination, but said they came from around the state. Signal Mountain is not really a mountain but part of the Cumberland Plateau, which extends through eastern Tennessee from Kentucky into northern Georgia and northern Alabama, said Rock Wilson, a professor of geology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. [1] His father died of pneumonia when he was 5. In Rated R&Bs interview with Davion Farris, he opens up about every song on his Moved EP. After one of the trials, then-Mississippi Governor Ross . After two hung jury trialsand with new evidence a reporter uncoveredByron De La Beckwith was convicted in the murder of Medgar Evers. Knowing he was a target of the KKK, Evers had taught the children safety drills, and they ran to hide in the bathtub when they heard the shot. ", Asked why his father would say that, he replied, "We had been several places together and different things. Byron De la Beckwith was born on the 9th of November, 1920. Byron De La Beckwith stood across the street from Medgar Evers home and gunned him down as Evers exited the car. All rights reserved. Mayor Wolfe said people here tended to be professionals connected with the university, medical centers, manufacturing plants or the Tennessee Valley Authority complex in the city. Ku Klux Klansman who assassinated African-American civil rights activist Medgar Evers in 1963. Two police officers had given him an alibi, swearing they saw him filling his car with gas at 1:05 a.m. on June 12, 1963. [5] Evers died an hour later, aged 37. He fought in the Battle of Guadalcanal and was shot in the waist during the Battle of Tarawa. Jerry Mitchell is an investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. Ridgen and others have been working on documentaries about these cases. She has not commented publicly on . William A. Beckley, Frank E. Beckwith. He said Evers rallied black Mississippians "to go against the white establishment. 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