25 Powerful Medgar Evers Quotes To Inspire You
Looking for your favorite quotes from the popular activist Medgar Evers? We have got the best collection of Medgar Evers Quotes, sayings, captions, (with images, pictures, wallpapers) about civil rights, courage, racism, and more.
Full name: Medgar Wiley Evers, Aka: Medgar Evers
Born: 2 July 1925; Born in: Decatur, Mississippi, United States
Died: June 12, 1963 (aged 37);
Occupation: American civil rights activist
Medgar Wiley Evers was an American civil rights activist in Mississippi, the state’s field secretary for the NAACP, and a World War II veteran who had served in the United States Army. Hope these quotes by Medgar Evers inspire you to stand for the right and live with quality.
Don’t forget to also read our collection of rise above quotes that will inspire you to let go and act with strength and courage.
Famous Medgar Evers Quotes
- “Freedom has never been free.”
Medgar Evers Quotes
- “Our only hope is to control the vote.”
- “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.”
Inspirational Medgar Evers Quotes
- “The gifts of God should be enjoyed by all citizens in Mississippi.”
- “I may be going to Heaven or Hell, but I’ll be going from Jackson.”
- “If we don’t like what the Republicans do, we need to get in there and change it.”
- “I was born in Decatur, was raised there, but I never in my life was permitted to vote there.”
- “If you hurt someone then you are hurting other people, and you will feel guilty about what you did.”
- “Hate is a wasteful emotion. Most of the people you hate don’t know you hate them and the rest don’t care.”
Medgar Evers Quotes Civil Rights
- “Except for teachers, who are ‘controlled’ as far as his militancy is concerned, good jobs are rare for Negroes.”
- “In the racial picture things will never be as they once were. History has reached a turning point, here and over the world.”
Famous Medgar Evers Quotes
- “I love my children and I love my wife with all my heart. And I would die, die gladly, if that would make a better life for them.”
- “When you hate, the only person that suffers is you because most of the people you hate don’t know it and the rest don’t care.”
Medgar Evers Sayings
- “We left the guns hidden in the car and tried walking into the polling place again, and the mob blocked us again. We didn’t pursue it.”
- “As long as God gives me strength to work and try to make things real for my children, I’m going to work for it – even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice.”
- “It may sound funny, but I love the South. I don’t choose to live anywhere else. There’s land here, where a man can raise cattle, and I’m going to do it some day.”
- “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the white man lick me. There’s something out here that I’ve got to do for my kids, and I’m not going to stop until I’ve done it.”
- “I’m looking to be shot any time I step out of my car… If I die, it will be in a good cause. I’ve been fighting for America just as much as the soldiers in Vietnam.”
- “You discover that the education the Negro gets is designed to keep him subservient. The poor black man is exploited by whites and by educated Negroes, too.”
- “I plan to live on campus in a dormitory and to do all the things any other student of the law school might do: use the library, eat in the dining hall, attend classes.”
- “Let me appeal to the consciences of many silent, responsible citizens of the white community who know that a victory for democracy in Jackson will be a victory for democracy everywhere.”
- “First it was the whites, and then their Negro message bearers. And the word was always the same: ‘Tell your sons to take their names off the books. Don’t show up at the courthouse voting day.’”
- “When a black Jacksonian looks about his home community, he sees a city of over 150,000, of which 40% is Negro, in which there is not a single Negro policeman or policewoman, school crossing guard, or fireman.”
- “The Negro has been here in America since 1619, a total of 344 years. He is not going anywhere else; this country is his home. He wants to do his part to help make his city, state, and nation a better place for everyone, regardless of color and race.”
- “I remember one of them – it was a 1941 black Ford. As it went by very slow, a guy leaned out with a shotgun, keeping a bead on us all the time, and we just had to walk slowly and wait for him to kill us… They didn’t kill us, but they didn’t end it, either.”
- “As paradoxical as life would have it, some of these same persons who were beaten are terrorized by the Nazis are assisting the die-hards of the Citizens’ Councils in bringing about economic pressure on Negroes who pay their poll taxes and register in Humphry County.”
- “The six of us gathered at my house, and we walked to the polls. I’ll never forget it. Not a Negro was on the streets, and when we got to the courthouse, the clerk said he wanted to talk with us. When we got into his office, some 15 or 20 armed white men surged in behind us – men I had grown up with, had played with.”
More About Medgar Evers
Mississippi became a major theatre of struggle during the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century because of its resistance to equal rights for its black citizens. Between the year 1952 and 1963, Medgar Evers was one of the state’s most impassioned activist, orator, and visionary for change. He fought for equality and fought against brutality.
As an NAACP field secretary, Medgar Wiley Evers became a target for those who opposed racial equality and desegregation. On June 12, 1963 Evers was shot in the back in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
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