Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Department of Archives and History commemorates the 50th anniversary of the slaying of civil rights leader Medgar Evers with the opening of a new exhibit in Jackson on May 1 with Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers Williams.

"This Is Home: Medgar Evers, Mississippi and the Movement" will include photographs, artifacts, documents and news film footage from the MDAH collection. The exhibit will cover Evers' early life and family, his career with the NAACP and his death.

The exhibit runs through October at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson. The exhibit will then be taken around the state.

Evers was shot down in the driveway of his Jackson home on June 11, 1963. Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of the crime in 1994 and died in prison.

An exhibit at the Eudora Welty House in Jackson will highlight how Evers' death prompted Eudora Welty to write the short story "Where is the Voice Coming From?" and the repercussions Welty faced after her story was published in The New Yorker. The exhibit will run May 15 through December 15 at the Eudora Welty Education and Visitor Center.

On May 29, Michael V. Williams, author of "Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr" and a professor at Mississippi State University, will speak at History Is Lunch at the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson.