VOA标准英语2013--US Civil Rights Leader Honored 50 Years After His Assassination

 

US Civil Rights Leader Honored 50 Years After His Assassination¹

Fifty years ago Medgar Evers was fighting for equal rights for African Americans in Mississippi. Myrlie Evers worked by her husband's side. She says his goal was to wipe out discrimination.

“He was a man on a mission, a mission to make his country everything he knew it could be. And certainly to have conditions improve dramatically for his own people,” she said.

Myrlie Evers-Williams says Medgar believed that racial barriers would fall only if blacks were allowed to vote - especially in communities where they outnumbered whites.

“Medgar was determined², having served in the armed services and returning home and being unable to vote or be a first class citizen, then he was going to have to do something about it," said Evers-Williams.

As a field secretary for the NAACP [The National Association for the Advancement³ of Colored People], the largest civil rights organization, Evers and others like Reverend Willie Blue registered thousands of blacks in a matter of months.

"We went out into the cotton fields and the byways and highways and everywhere that we could get people to vote and they marked their ballots," said Blue.

Evers also was instrumental in helping⁴ to racially integrate the University of Mississippi and leading boycotts⁵ against white merchants so they would allow blacks to eat at their lunch counters. Hollis Watkins was recruited by Evers to join the struggle.  

"He was committed to the cause. You knew he was not, as we would say, a 'fly-by-night' [unreliable] person. But he was going to be there and would be there for the long haul. That made you feel good," said Watkins.

"In 1963 Jackson, Mississippi was the hotbed of mass demonstrations," said Frankye Adams Johnson, who demonstrated with Medgar Evers. She said his work made him the target of death threats from white racists.

"Not to say he was not concerned for his life, but he had a passion for what he did that kind of went beyond selfishness," said Johnson.

On the evening of June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers returned to his home. He got out of the car and was killed by an assassin's bullet.

Evers was shot by Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist. It took 31 years and two trials to convict him. Evers-Williams remembers her husband saying "you can kill a man but you can't kill an idea."  

“He believed it to the death. He sacrificed his life and he did it willingly, not that he wanted to die, but he knew that it would take everything that he could give and others could give to prompt America to accept all of its citizens as just that, full class citizens in America," said Evers-Williams.

Now, 50 years after his death, Evers-Williams says her husband is still inspiring people to continue to work for justice and equality. 

1 assassination   

n.暗杀；暗杀事件

参考例句：

• The assassination of the president brought matters to a head.总统遭暗杀使事态到了严重关头。
• Lincoln's assassination in 1865 shocked the whole nation.1865年，林肯遇刺事件震惊全美国。

2 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

3 advancement   

n.前进，促进，提升

参考例句：

• His new contribution to the advancement of physiology was well appreciated.他对生理学发展的新贡献获得高度赞赏。
• The aim of a university should be the advancement of learning.大学的目标应是促进学术。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 boycotts   

（对某事物的）抵制( boycott的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Their methods included boycotts and court action, supplemented by'sit-ins". 他们的主要方法包括联合抵制、法庭起诉，还附带进行静坐抗议。
• Are boycotts for other purposes illegal? 至于用于其它目的的联合抵制行动是否也是非法的呢？