Sightseeing

We passed through Jackson, Mississippi, the site of the June 12, 1963 murder of Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers by white supremacist and KKK member Byron De La Beckwith. Evers was active in the campaign to desegregate the University of Mississippi. De La Beckwith was unsuccessfully tried twice by all white juries in the 60's and it was not until 1994, after living as a free man for more than 30 years, that a racially mixed jury found him guilty of the murder. He died in prison in 2001. The murder and trial were portrayed in the 1996 movie, Ghosts Of Mississippi.

A little further along I-20 we came to the State Highway 154 site of the 1934 ambush and killing of Bonnie and Clyde. We did not stop but there is a museum in the site of a nearby restaurant where the pair stopped for takeout sandwiches just before their death. The Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum is run by the son of one of the lawmen who took part in the ambush. Bonnie was still clutching her half eaten sandwich when she was killed. It may not have been quite as glamorous a shootout as portrayed in the movies.