Medgar and Myrlie Evers moved into this three-bedroom Jackson home with their children Darrell and Reena in 1955 after Medgar became Mississippi's first NAACP Field Secretary, and their son Van was born there in 1960. Built in the first middle-class subdivision developed by black developers in Jackson, the house was purchased by Medgar Wiley Evers, a U.S. Army veteran, with a Veterans Administration loan. Evers was an outspoken activist for voter registration and social justice whose work included speaking at mass meetings, documenting brutality, working with the NAACP legal defense team, encouraging voter registration, and coordinating protests, efforts that helped bring down legal racial barriers, including James Meredith's admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962. His prominence brought danger to the family, who faced intimidation, employment reprisals, and violence, learned safety precautions in the house, and endured a firebomb attack in the carport that police dismissed as a prank. Just after midnight on June 12, 1963, after returning from a meeting, Evers was assassinated in the driveway by a gunman hiding across the street. After his death, the family moved to California and deeded the home to Tougaloo College as a historic house museum. Evers was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, and Byron De La Beckwith, charged with the murder, was convicted in 1994 after two hung juries in 1964.
