When war broke out, black Americans fought in segregated units to serve their country. The breath of freedom they experienced in Europe flamed the fight for equality when they returned home.
Today would have been the 84th birthday of Civil Rights organizer Medgar Evers, had he not been murdered in 1963.Evers was a black World War II veteran and a college graduate who sold insurance throughout rural Mississippi. He made headlines in 1954 when he tried to get into the University of Mississippi Law School at a time when segregation was strictly enforced. And he was shot in the back outside his home for his very public work for the legal rights of African Americans.