The civil rights leader Medgar Evers is maybe more known for his assassination in 1963 than the work he did to fight for voting rights and desegregation. MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid tells the story of Medgar and his wife Myrlie in a new book. Evers was the NAACP field secretary in Mississippi, a state that lynched more Black people than any other. The risks of the job created a lot of tension in their marriage — and after Medgar's death, Myrlie's fury drove her to be an activist herself. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is the history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Terry Gross.
How to be a Civil Rights Widow is a chapter titled in a new book by my guest guest Joy Ann Reid, host of the MSNBC evening show the Readout.
The widow is Merle Evers.
Her husband was Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist who served as the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary and risked his life to push for voting rights, desegregation and freedom.
Medgar and Murley were both from Mississippi.
Merlee constantly worried about her husbands and children's safety, with good reason.
Their house was firebombed.
Later in June 1963, Medgar Evers was assassinated just outside the door of their home.
She heard the gunshot and found her husband bleeding out.
He was the first in a series of high profile assassinations.
Next came president Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
Joy Reid describes her new book, Medgar and Murley, as a love story between two black people in Mississippi, their love for their children and the higher love it took for black Americans to love America and to fight for it, even in the state that butchered more black bodies via lynching than any other.
The love story between Murray and Medgar evers is also fraught with tension, with Murley objecting to how much he was away from home, leaving her wondering if he loved his work more than he loved his family, and often leaving her alone to deal with the constant phone calls threatening the lives of her family.
After her husband's death, Merle became an activist, an in demand public speaker, and eventually the chairman of the board of the NAACP.
She gave the invocation at President Obama's second inauguration.