Civil Rights - Movements & Figures, United States - Ethnic & Race Relations, Criminals - General & Miscellaneous - Biography, Regional Studies - Southern U.S., Post-World War II American History - General & Miscellaneous, Assassinations & Conspiracies, Mu

The ghosts of Medgar Evers

Name: The ghosts of Medgar Evers
Author: Willie Morris
ISBN: 9780679459569

by Willie Morris

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Overview

"To me there is no more haunted, complex terrain in America than the countryside between Port Gibson, Mississippi, and the river. The land is full of ghosts. . . . Medgar Evers returned here from infantry combat in France after World War II to attend Alcorn State University. Here he met and courted his future wife, Myrlie. And it is because of him and of her that I am making this journey on this day to the Windsor Ruins a few miles north of the Alcorn campus. Just out of Port Gibson, a sign on the side of the road said: WINDSOR RUINS CLOSED TODAY. Hollywood had taken them over."

Thus, Willie Morris begins an intensely personal journey—both dramatic and emotional—involving racism, murder, history, and Hollywood.

For years Morris has portrayed American life through lyrical evocations of his own experience. Now he brings together the harsh realities of race and the magical illusions of Hollywood in an unusual book about the making of the movie Ghosts of Mississippi and its more complicated historical background: the 1963 assassination of the courageous civil rights activist Medgar Evers and the conviction thirty years later of his killer, Byron De La Beckwith, in one of the most striking cases in the annals of American jurisprudence.

The Ghosts of Medgar Evers is not only a dramatic account of the making of a major motion picture about one of the most heinous crimes of this century; it is also an examination of the murder itself and the people involved that explains why it took so long for justice to prevail.

Morris was on hand both for the trial and for the making of the movie. As the filming progressed, layer after layerof ironies, of personal and public deja vus, unfolded. With director Rob Reiner and producer Fred Zollo, Morris traveled the Mississippi back roads known to him since boyhood, surveying the story's real locales. He was present when the assassination was reenacted at the actual murder scene, and on the Hollywood soundstages when the trial was filmed—recreations that involved a number of participants in the original events, including three of Evers's children, who witnessed his death in 1963. His sons Darrell and Van Evers portrayed themselves as adults in the movie, and his daughter, Reena, played a juror in the 1994 trial. The filming, Morris reports, was often emotionally wrenching, particularly for the family members: When Alec Baldwin, as assistant district attorney Bobby DeLaughter, made his final summary to the jury, Reena wept openly.

The South today and the unadorned politics of race are juxtaposed and intermingled with the politics and mechanics of moviemaking.

The Ghosts of Medgar Evers is Willie Morris at his best.

About the Author, Willie Morris

Willie Morris's mastery of melding autobiography and significant history has been demonstrated in North Toward Home, New York Days, and The Courting of Marcus Dupree. In 1996, he was the recipient of the Richard Wright Medal for Literary Excellence. He has written sixteen books, including two novels and the memorable My Dog Skip. He lives in Jackson, Mississippi.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Rob Reiner's 1997 film The Ghosts of Mississippi, about the murder of 1960s civil rights activist Medgar Evers and the eventual conviction of his killer 30 years later, was widely regarded as an earnest but uninspired film redeemed only by James Woods's performance as Evers's flamboyantly racist assassin. It was also a commercial flop. Even so, Mississippi author Morris's account of the making of the film might have been an interesting investigation into the politics of race and popular culture, and a chance to exploit the inherent comedy of movie people in the heartland. But instead, the book itself is well-meaning and uninspired, an overly detailed, credulous account of the minutiae of Hollywood filmmaking, written in the slow rhythm of a cocktail party raconteur dropping names, some familiar, some not. Film principals such as director Reiner and actor Alec Baldwin are quoted at length, speaking in the clichs of the celebrity profile, while Evers's widow Myrlie, who consulted on the film, remains a rather distant figure. The film's technical aspects are exhaustively described, but much of what Morris finds so fascinating will be common knowledge to many movie fans. Indeed, Morris retails some of the hoariest Hollywood storiesHoward Hawks introducing Faulkner to Clark Gable, for exampleas if they were brand new. Most disappointingly, Morris, who knew or shared acquaintances with many of the real figures in the case, speaks of the thorny problem of race mostly in grandiloquent platitudes. Readers interested in race or in the murder itself will be bored by the pages of stargazing, while readers interested in film will have read much of this stuff before, about better movies. Author tour. (Feb.)

Library Journal

Mississippi-based author Morris's new book on the making of the film Ghosts of Mississippi ranks among the best of the on-the-spot-coverage film books of recent years. He blends perceptive regional awareness with a sharp wit and eye. History and fiction blend seamlessly as location shooting, Hollywood stars, Evers's family and friends, and public dj`a vu combine to form a modern classic film. But historians will find much useful information on the old and new South here, also. Moreover, Morris's fluid prose reminds us that Southern writing is very much alive. Highly recommended for all film and cultural history collections.Anthony J. Adam, Prairie View A&M Univ. Lib., Houston