Byron De La Beckwith convicted on this date in 1994 in Medgar Evers assassination

Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of killing civil rights leader Medgar Wiley Evers on February 5, 1994.

Medgar Evers murdered at his home

The Mississippi NAACP leader was shot to death in his own driveway shortly after midnight on June 12, 1963, while his wife and their three small children were inside the home in Jackson.

The home was established as a national monument in 2020 and is now known as The Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.

Beckwith tried twice, goes free

Beckwith was arrested for the murder several days later. Two all-white juries tried Beckwith in the 1960s, but they deadlocked and mistrials were declared.

Investigative journalism leads to new Beckwith trial

Then-Clarion Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell, pouring through Sovereignty Commission records, found the commission screened the all-white juries in the 1964 trial of Beckwith. The investigative reporting led to the reopening of the Evers case.

In 1994, an integrated jury convicted Beckwith of murder, and Hinds County Circuit Court Judge L. Breland  sentenced him to life in prison. Beckwith died in prison in 2001.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Beckwith convicted on this date in 1994 in Medgar Evers murder