is submitted. madam clerk, if you will adjourn court. >> the honorable court is adjourned until wednesday , september 9 at 9:30 a.m. >> president trump delivers the commencement address to the graduating class at west point saturday. there will be more than 1000 cadets graduating. social distancing measures will be in place for the ceremony. live coverage begins at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span. today marks the 57th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader medgar evers in jackson, mississippi. to learn his house more about the tragic events of 1963. >> for many of us who have gone overseas and fought for this country, fought for mississippi, fought for alabama, fought for

north carolina, fought for illinois, and fought for every state in this union. we are going to stay here and see that the things the mayor -- has saidality become reality. >> 15 minutes after midnight, he got out of his car. a sniper fired a single shot. it crashed through his body and through a window in the house. he died an hour later at a jackson hospital. ♪ >> you are in the former home of medgar evers.

in jackson and -- he was born and raised in decatur, mississippi. he had friends he talked about , having white playmates. they would hunt and fish together. at about the age of 16, they went separate ways. he talked about seeing his friends. he was going downtown. he saw his friends standing on the corner with other whites. he said they called him nigger. he noticed his friend dropped his head when he said it. that is what kind of situation he grew up in. he talked about, he said i knew the difference that was made between the races. he could never understand why it was that way. he talked to his father about it and his father would talk to them and talk to him about what

his responsibilities are. reading and listening to people talk it really came home to him just how much the differences were made between the races and the things that would happen. he witnessed a luncheon -- a lynching at the age of 12. and he said father that is what they would do. said i was a little bit angry and frustrated. he was hurt. getting away from th mississippi and going to the army when he was only 16. he served in world war ii and talked about as he traveled, he said defending america, it didn't matter the color of his skin until he came back home to mississippi. on his tourney first birthday, he tried to register to vote, he and his brother charles, and he said these group of white men turned them around with shotguns and ran them off with shotguns.

he said they ran and did not go up against those men my but it made him get serious. he finished his last two years enrolledchool and he in college, majoring in business administration. alcorn, graduated from he was in mount bayou, it was an all-black town, founded by blacks and run by blacks. in mount bayoued who was a black man who was rich. he had an insurance company, so he gave medgar his first job of selling insurance. medgar said he started out in the little town of clarksville, mississippi selling insurance. he ventured out to the plantations, trying to sell insurance out there.

medgar looked at the conditions under which people were living and that black people did not even know what insurance was. as he was talking to them and watching their conditions and looking at their conditions and looking at the reaction he was getting when he talked about human rights, civil rights, the naacp, getting registered to vote, that kind of thing, people hear of these stories. they were true, it was what was happening to people in the area. for many areas, there were no schools. if you tried to register to vote, what would happen to you is what would happen to others. -- medgar was telling him that was their rights. he would not be allowed back on initiatedties, and he

several boycotts. blacks could buy gas but cannot use the bathroom. the prices in the grocery store would go up when the blacks went in. and they would say you have to stand in line until the whites were served. somewhere we will go or you are treated better. these things started to work because of medgar evers. mississippi did not have any naacp secretaries. his job was to come in and organize 82 counties in the state of mississippi, getting people registered to vote, taking complaints, that type of thing, and checking what was going on. selected by the national naacp office to do that after he tried to get into the university of mississippi. now ole miss.

they denied him admission and this is when the national naacp ask him to be a field secretary. he had to come into jackson. maybe at first they didn't take him to serious, it was only after he came into jackson and really began to get things flowing, so to speak, and he got involved with the student movement. riders whoe freedom came in. begank that's when people to see this man is shaking things up and he will not give up. wlbt to makeenged a speech -- lacks could not blacks could not make a speech on television. when i went only away to college. he was not on television. he was not on radio. this is when people begin to see they were not going to turn people around.

i called them the grassroots people. the foot soldiers began to get involved. women, children began to get involved. i think this is when they saw this man is really shaking things up. ondo not shop for anything capitol street. lets the merchants feel the economic pinch. merchant to call me and he said i want you to know that i talked to my national office today and they want me to tell you that we don't need nigger business. these are stories that help support the white citizens council, a council dedicated to keeping you and i second class citizens. finally, ladies and gentlemen, we will be mistreating here to negroesom comes here in jackson, mississippi. [applause] where medgar and his family came to live in 1955.

it was historic in itself because the family came into the neighborhood after he became field secretary. this was a neighborhood that was being developed but to young black world war ii veterans. this had never happened before and jackson can -- jackson, mississippi and probably in the state of mississippi. they had developed a one street subdivision. they were constructing homes for what they called middle-class professionals. teachers, thiss, is this owners living on this one street, this subdivision. they would put the subdivision in place between two white subdivisions. it was like a trial. that is where medgar came here he chose a lot.

this was a house on the left and one on the right. he knew the things that were happening, the threats being made and so he changed his house plans. he did not want a front door. this is the only house in the area that does not have a front door. wantedd that because he his main entrance through the carport and he was going to teach his family that when they come into the driveway, they would always exit the car on the passenger side so they could use the wall and the car as a means of protection. the windows on the east wall are higher than other windows, higher than houses like this on the street. were here,ear there someone shot through the living room window. mrs. evers said put them on the floor because it's

lower than the bed would be viewed the second time, -- bed would be. the second time, they were shot through the bedroom window. this is when they all got on the floor. she talked about how sometimes she would sleep with a gun. she was protecting her kids. we knew people were following him. that is why he took all of these precautions. in meetings he talked about how he had this mechanic friend. he would take it to him to have it souped up to outrun people who were chasing him and those kind of things. sometimes i think you have a calling and you cannot let go and i believe that's the way it was with him, that's what he would talk about. >> i have had a number of threatening calls. people saying they were going to kill me, going to blow my home up. saying i only had a few hours to live. >> 50 minutes past midnight, he

got out of his car at his home and a sniper fired a shot at evers' silhouette. it crashed through his body and into the house. she said she heard him pull up and not getting into the house and she said she heard the shots. she said my kids began crawling across the floor to go to the bathroom because they had told medgar that if something should happen the safest place in the , house was the bathtub. that is where they were headed until she heard a thump. and he her open the door was staggering around the car trying to open the door. she heard a couple more shots and she thought they were still shooting at her.

were fromtwo shots next door. said he was not aiming at anyone in particular, just hoping to run whoever was away. medgar'scame to rescue. his wife said she was laying face down his keys in his right town. she said i thought he was dead but he wasn't. he was saying something they could not understand your they brought him inside the house. they took a mattress off the bed and put them on the mattress to transport him to the hospital. mississippi in, 1963 of praised a man he fought for freedom all of his life

gerd hey laid evers in his grave ♪ feltllowing his death, it like the movement died a little bit. they had a service at the masonic temple and after that he was buried in arlington national cemetery. after a two of time, no one was periodhouse -- after a of time, no one was in the house. it had gotten in bad shape. there are other exhibits and other museums. we wanted to do something with the house. we may not have known exactly what we were going to do. at first people just wanted to come and see where medgar evers and his family lived. in andd let people flow flow out. it got to the point where we've got to say something. there are people in mississippi who are my age or older who do

not really know who medgar evers was. i want people to know who medgar evers was and the great difference he made in mississippi. i learned later, not only in mississippi but throughout the world. one of the things he said is like mississippi. this is home. i like fishing here. i like hunting. mississippi is a wonderful place to grow up. he said, why should i leave? he said i love mississippi. had he left mississippi, what about the other people? not everybody could or would lead mississippi. why should you? he said, you got the same rights as anybody born here, why should you run away to some unknown city or state to get a decent education or to make a living for your family, to get a decent

family topport your have a nice home? why should you have to do that? decided toar evers stay right here in mississippi, and thank god he did. ♪ with the federal government at work in d.c. and around the country, use the congressional directory for contact information for members of congress, governors and federal agencies. order your copy online today at c-spanstore.org. brownan governor kate announced a pause and further re-openings for a week due to an increase in positive coronavirus cases. she also says there's no reason to believe the increases are due to recent protests. gov. brown: