Of Long Memory Mississippi And The Murder Of Medgar Evers [Paperback]

The history is well known: On June 12, 1963, Mississippi's courageous NAACP chief, Medgar Evers, was gunned down by white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith. Tried twice by all-white juries, Beckwith escaped conviction for three decades. But then Mississippi began to confront its tormented past. And in the 1990s, when Beckwith was sent to jail by a crusading young prosecutor, the family of Medgar Evers finally got justice. Hailed as aNew York TimesNotable Book of the Year and a finalist for the Lillian Smith Award,Of Long Memoryreveals how this remarkable reversal took place. Nossiter uses the tools of memory, history, and reportage—and the clear vantage point of an outsider, a Northerner—to portray an entire state quite literally summoning up its ghosts. A new epilogue discusses other civil rights cases now being reconsidered, and skillfully shows how the South is finding a way to create justice where none had existed before.

Adam Nossiterhas been a staff writer for theNew York Timesand before that theAtlanta Journal-Constitution. He is the author ofThe Algeria Hotel: France, Memory, and the Second World War, and has been writing about the South for nearly 20 years. He lives in New Orleans.