Medgar Evers Quotes

Freedom has never been free… 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.

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.’

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.

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.

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.

The Negro has been here in America since 1619, a total of 344 years. He is not going anywhere else; this is country is his home. He wants to do his part to help make his city, state, and nation a better place for better place for everyone, regardless of color and race.

I was born in Decatur, was raised there, but I never in my life was permitted to vote there.

Except for teachers, who are ‘controlled’ as far as his militancy is concerned, good jobs are rare for Negroes.

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.

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.

Freedom has never been free.

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.

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.