Byron De La Beckwith - Definition and Overview

Byron De La Beckwith

Byron De La Beckwith (1921-2001) was an American white supremacist and the assassin of civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963 in Jackson, Mississippi.

Two trials ended with deadlocked all-white juries unable to reach a verdict. Beckwith was finally convicted in 1994, based on new evidence that he had boasted about the killing at a Ku Klux Klan rally. He was given a life sentence for murder and died in prison in 2001 of heart problems, while his case was still being appealed.

The 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi tells the story of the 1994 trial. The 1964 Bob Dylan song "Only a Pawn in Their Game" immortalized De La Beckwith in song, as a patsy for racists, and prophecied De La Beckwith's end: "But when the shadowy sun sets on the one/That fired the gun/He'll see by his grave/On the stone that remains/Carved next to his name/His epitaph plain:/Only a pawn in their game."

See also

• List of assassins
• List of famous prison deaths