Wanda Evers is not going down without a fight. The niece of Medgar Evers, the NAACP leader who was assassinated outside of his home in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 12, 1963, says she plans to go to Washington, D.C., and meet with President Donald Trump to urge him to reconsider removing her uncle’s name from a Naval battleship.
“We are fighting this and I’m making arrangements to go to Washington because I have to see this man (Trump) face-to-face,” said Evers, now a district supervisor in Hinds County, Mississippi. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re Black or white, it’s a matter of what you’re doing now for a man that lost his life in his driveway in front of his children, in front of his wife. A man that fought in the war for us.”
Medgar Evers was a World War II veteran who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Trump once hailed him as a “great American hero.”
But the president’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has directed the Navy to rename some of the ships in the Lewis and Clark class, a series of vessels named after American historical figures who made significant contributions to the nation.
Evers certainly qualifies. So why rename the USNS Medgar Evers?
“Four-letter word called race,” Wanda Evers told the Jackson city council members. “My uncle died for us to be where we are today, and for them to just take his name, they already took it out of Washington, now you want to take it off a boat.”
There doesn’t seem to be any other reasonable explanation. Hegseth has said it’s part of the military’s ongoing effort to eliminate “wokeness” from the military. Eliminating any trace of diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives in the federal government has been a priority of the Trump administration.
“What does that accomplish for you?” Wanda Evers asked. “How can you sleep at night?”
The Defense Department had already removed any mention of Medgar Evers from the Arlington National Cemetery website. The site had previously honored Black Americans who served in the military.
Wanda Evers is not alone in her crusade to preserve her uncle’s memory. Earlier this week, the Jackson City Council unanimously passed a resolution urging the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense to reverse their decision on renaming the Evers ship.
“It’s unfortunate our politics have gotten to the place of moving away from people such as Medgar Evers. It was rough enough they took his name out of Arlington Cemetery, but this is an even bigger blow,” Jackson City Councilman Aaron Banks said.
The USNS Medgar Evers was christened in 2011. Evers’ widow, Myrlie Evers, broke a bottle of champagne against the bow, following Naval tradition. The 689-foot vessel, designated T-AKE 13, was named in honor of the civil rights icon by then-U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, formerly Mississippi’s governor.
Trump visited Jackson in 2017 to commemorate the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. The president noted Evers’ military service and said, “he came back to Mississippi and kept fighting for the same rights and freedoms he fought for in the war,” according to the Clarion Ledger‘s account of his visit.
Wanda Evers is sure to remind him of those comments when she gets her face time.
“We have to understand what we’re dealing with in this day and time,” she urged. “If you have a voice, you have to fight. It’s time to fight; it’s timeout for sitting in a room and conversating. I’m not talking about violence; I’m talking about using your voice to show that we can stand too.”
