They shot Medgar Evers

For The Madera Tribune

The Rev. Naaman Haynes.

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On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers pulled into his driveway at Decatur, Mississippi after returning from an integration meeting where he had conferred with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that stated, “Jim Crow Must Go,” Evers was struck in the back with a bullet that ricocheted into his home. He staggered 30 feet before collapsing, dying at the local hospital 50 minutes later. Evers was murdered just hours after President John F. Kennedy’s speech on national television in support of civil rights.

The news hit hard in Madera, especially in the African-American community, and no one was surprised when Rev. Naaman Haynes called for a memorial service and a march for the slain Mississippi NAACP leader. On June 5, 1963, after the service at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Wallace Street in Madera, Rev. Haynes organized a march down A Street to Yosemite Ave. and then down the main street to the Courthouse. Knowing that feelings were running high, Rev. Haynes took no chances. He told the marchers “Make no reply to sideliners and do not fight back if anyone attacks you. If you can’t agree to these conditions, do not march.”

And so it went. Naaman Haynes once again put on the mantle of leadership and led the community in a memorial/march at a time when not everyone agreed that it was a good idea. In doing so, he further emerged as a leader of Madera’s African-American Community during the turbulent ’60s.