President Bush Doesn't Speak For Me

By Rose Aguilar, AlterNet. Posted July 22, 2005.

In 1963, Charles Evers' older brother, Medgar Evers, was shot and killed by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. Beckwith stood trial twice, but in both cases the all-white jury could not reach a verdict. He was finally convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1994, 31 years after the murder. Before his murder, Medgar established local chapters of the NAACP throughout the Mississippi Delta and organized boycotts of businesses that refused to allow blacks to use their restrooms. After an unsuccessful attempt to get into the University of Mississippi Law School, Medgar was appointed as the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi.

After his brother's death, Charles Evers took over at the NAACP and began black voter registration drives. Six years later, he was elected mayor of Fayette, Mississippi, the first black to hold elected office in the state since Reconstruction. Evers, who became a Republican during the Nixon years, also served as an advisor to a diverse group of politicians, including Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan.

Today the 82-year-old Evers is the general manager of WMPR, a community radio station in Jackson, Mississippi. He hosts a radio show on Wednesday nights called, "Let's Talk," and is the author of "Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story." He proudly displays a number of framed photos of himself shaking hands with a wide array of mostly Republican politicians and civil rights leaders in his office.

ROSE AGUILAR: How did you feel about the Killen ruling? [On June 22, Edgar Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, was sentenced to 60 years in prison for orchestrating the murder of black Mississippian James Chaney and white New Yorkers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in 1964.]

CHARLES EVERS: I'm elated. I almost shed tears knowing that they convicted an old racist. It's unbelievable. We've begun to get justice. We've begun to put fear into those whites who think they can do anything they want to a black person and get away with it. Now we got white powerful Mississippians who say, no, you can't do that anymore, and I'm proud of that.

I've been talking to a lot of people about politics and it's interesting to talk to young people. I went to the Jubilee Jam the other night and I interviewed a number of young black men who said, blacks vote Democrat. Whites vote Republican. I told them I've met a lot of whites who vote Democrat and they were shocked by that. Then I spoke to young white men and they said the same thing. They also said they have no black friends. Is that a common opinion?

I'm against an all-white anything or an all-black anything. I'm a Republican, by the way. I feel there should be blacks in every Party. I believe in most of the things Republicans stand for.

Like what?

I'm against abortion. I'm for prayer in schools. I'm for economic independence. I don't believe in welfare. I think it's a joke. I believe welfare makes you lazy and unproductive. The only thing I don't agree with is the war. I think the war is wrong. I think the President is wrong on this. The main thing I believe in is freedom. I don't think the Republicans say it as much as Democrats, but I think the Democrats say one thing and do another. Most of them are white.

There are a lot of black Democrats in Congress. Clinton appointed a lot of blacks.

Clinton was our number one President. I loved Clinton; not as a Democrat, but as a person.

Did you vote for Clinton?

No I didn't. I'm a Republican. I voted for my party.

So you're a party-line voter?

Not all the time, but that time I did.

How do you feel about the Senate's apology for failing to make lynching a federal crime? The majority of the people who haven't signed on are Republican.

I ripped them apart on my radio show last night. It hurts me and it hurts every Mississippian and makes us look bad. I meet with them quite often and I'll tell them they're wrong. The least they could have done was say, "I'm sorry."

What was your turning point? Why did you become a Republican?

I have nothing against the Democratic Party. When I became mayor, I had to run as an independent because the Democrats wouldn't allow us to run as a Democrat back in those days. But once we broke the Democrats down and took over the seat, I was a national committee member, went to Chicago and took the Party away from the old Democrats. And what did they do? They ran to the Republican Party. So my thinking was, once we got blacks into the Democratic Party, let's do the same in the Republican Party and make damn sure they don't get away with nothin'.

Rose Aguilar is a San Francisco-based journalist gathering stories from people living in states that voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush. Track her journey at Stories in America.

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