Mississippi Civil Rights Murder: The Medgar Evers Case Explained

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On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers pulled into his driveway after midnight, carrying t-shirts

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that said, "Jim Crow must go."

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Across the streets, hidden in honeysuckle vines, Byron Dela Beckwith looked through a rifle

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scope.

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One shot, 31 years, three trials.

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And today, more than six decades later, there's a fight happening over whether we can even

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call the man who killed him a racist.

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This is the story of Medgar Evers.

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So I'm going to tell you about Medgar Evers, and I know you've probably heard the name

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before.

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But I really don't think most people understand what happened to him, or more importantly,

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what happened after.

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June 12, 1963, Jackson, Mississippi.

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Shortly after midnight, and Medgar Evers is coming home from an NAACP meeting.

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He's the field secretary for Mississippi, which basically means he's the guy on the ground

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doing the most dangerous work imaginable during the height of the civil rights movement.

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Everyone knows his life is in danger.

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His name is on multiple death lists.

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The family has already survived a fire bombing.

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They practice crawling on the floor to stay low below the window line in case someone shoots

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at them.

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The kids sleep on mattresses on the ground.

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This is their normal.

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That night, President Kennedy had just given a televised address about civil rights being

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a moral issue.

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Medgar had stayed late at the meeting, probably discussing what Kennedy's speech might

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mean for their work.

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When he pulls up to his home at 12.30 a.m., he's carrying a stack of t-shirts that say Jim

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Crowe must go.

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He gets out of his olds' mobile.

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Across the streets, Byron Dela Beckwith has been waiting in a thicket of honeysuckle vines.

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He's got a 1917 infield rifle with a golden hawk telescope sight.

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He's been positioned there for hours, about 150 feet away from the driveway.

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And when Medgar steps out of his car, Beckwith fires one shot.

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The bullet hits Medgar in the upper back, goes straight through his heart.

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Exits his chest, shatters the front windows of the house, bounces off the refrigerator,

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and gets lodged in the kitchen wall.

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Medgar somehow manages to stagger 30 feet toward his front door before he collapses.

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His wife Merle and their three kids hear the shot and come running.

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They find him on the doorstep, still holding those t-shirts.

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A neighbor helps him get to the University Medical Center.

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He dies 50 minutes later from internal injuries and blood loss.

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He was 37 years old.

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Now let's talk about Byron Dela Beckwith.

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Born in 1920, raised in the Mississippi Delta after his father died when he was five.

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Marine Corps veteran, who saw a combat in the Pacific at Guadalcanal.

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He came home and made it his mission to preserve segregation at any cost.

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He was a charter member of the White Citizens Council, deeply involved in the KKK, and

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subscribed to something called the Phineas Priesthood Ideology, which advocated for violent purification

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of the White Race.

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To him, Medgar was what Beckwith would later call a "mongrel and a theological enemy."

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The forensic evidence against Beckwith was really solid.

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When he fired that rifle, the recoil was so powerful that the scopes slammed into his

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right eye and left the visible bruise.

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Forensic experts called this "scope eye."

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People noticed it.

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He also panicked after the shot and dropped the rifle in the honeysuckle when he fled.

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Police and the FBI found it within 24 hours.

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And then there was a fingerprint on the telescopic site.

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The FBI matched it to Beckwith's military records.

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They arrested him on June 23rd, 11 days after the murder.

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You would think this would be straightforward.

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They have the murder weapon with his fingerprint on it.

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They have witnesses who saw a white Plymouth Valiant which matches his car leaving the scene.

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They have the scope eye bruise.

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But this is Mississippi in 1964.

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The first trial happens in February, and while Mervy Evers is on the stand giving emotional

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testimony about watching her husband die in the driveway, Ross Barnett walks into the

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courtroom.

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He's the outgoing governor of Mississippi, and he walks right over to the defense table

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and shakes Byron De La Beckwith's hand.

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In front of the all-white, all-male jury.

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The message could not be clearer.

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The jury deadlocks.

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The second trial happened in April.

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Same result.

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Hung jury.

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But what people didn't know at the time was that something way more insidious was happening

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behind the scenes.

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There was this organization called the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission.

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It was a state-funded spy agency created to fight integration.

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And they actively helped Beckwith's defense team vet the jury pool.

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They went through the potential jurors and flagged anyone who might be sympathetic to civil

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rights.

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They made notes like, believe to be Jewish or has connections to people coming down from

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the north.

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They engineered that jury to make sure Beckwith could walk free.

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His legal fees were completely paid for by the White Citizens Council.

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In 1969, the charges against Beckwith were dismissed entirely.

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He became a full-carrow and white supremacist circles.

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He'd show up at KKK rallies and brag about killing megr-ever's.

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People would introduce him as the man who, quote, delivered the blow for the white race.

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He even started going by the nickname Delay as a joke about how justice kept getting delayed.

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Well, a piece of shit.

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His appetite for violence caught up with him in 1973.

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New Orleans police arrested him on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway with a timed dynamite

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bomb in his car.

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He was on the way to blow up the home of an anti-deformation league director.

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He got convicted for conspiracy to commit murder and served almost three years.

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Then he went right back to his old life, still bragging, still believing he'd gotten away

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with it.

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The case stayed cold until 1989.

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A reporter named Jerry Mitchell started digging into the sovereignty commission's files

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and discovered the jury tampering.

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That gave prosecutors legal grounds to reopen the case.

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But you're looking at a 30-year-old murder.

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How do you try a case when all the evidence is supposedly gone?

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Except it wasn't.

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Merlea Evers had kept a certified copy of the court transcript in a safety deposit box

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for three decades, because she suspected the official records just might up and disappear.

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Of course she was right.

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The courthouse had lost their copy.

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During a police station cleanup, someone found a box with all the original crime scene photos

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and the fingerprint evidence.

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The murder weapon turned up in the home of a former judge who had kept it as a souvenir.

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And in the grimest part of the whole process, they had to exume Medgar's body for a modern

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autopsy.

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Because he'd been so expertly involved in 1963, Embaried at Arlington Cemetery in a cement

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line plot with Good drainage, his remains were remarkably preserved.

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His son Daryl was able to see his father's face for the first time in 30 years.

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The third trial happened in 1994.

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This time the jury had eight black members and four white members.

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The prosecution brought new witnesses in, including people who testified about Beckwith bragging

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at clan rallies for decades.

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Del Martinis, a former clansman, turned FBI informant, testified at Beckwith, had boasted

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about the murder multiple times at white supremacist gatherings.

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On February 5, 1994, the jury came back with a guilty verdict.

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Byron Della Beckwith was sentenced to life in prison.

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He died there in 2001 at age 80.

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You'd think that would be the end of the story.

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Justice served even if it took 31 years.

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Right now, in 2026, the story is taking another turn.

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In 2020, the Medgar and Merleavers home was designated as a national monument.

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The National Park Service runs it.

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You can visit it.

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The bullet hole is still there in the window.

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But in February 2026, news broke that the park service had temporarily pulled the visitor

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brochures from the site.

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According to reports, the brochures are being revised to remove words like "racist" when

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describing Byron Della Beckwith.

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They're also planning to remove the description, "Meggar lying in a pool of blood."

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Park Service officials who spoke anonymously have said they were told to make these changes.

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Some of this appears connected to President Trump's March 2025 executive order called "Restoring

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Truth and Sanity to American History," which directed the Interior Secretary to "Revised

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Materials that "Prepetuate a False Reconstruction of American History."

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Allen Spears from the National Parks Conservation Association said that removing the word "racist"

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from the description of a man who openly identified as one, who was a member of both the White

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Citizens Council and the KKK, who called Black people beasts and mongrels in interviews,

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turns the assassination into something bloodless and without impact.

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After massive public backlash, the brochures were returned to the site within hours on February

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5, 2026.

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Park Service officials claimed they were outdated and needed updating.

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Reena Evers' Everett, Medgar and Merle's daughter and the executive director of the Medgar

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and Merle Evers Institute said the family has been told the matter is under review.

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This case changed everything for civil rights cold cases.

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The fact that they successfully prosecuted Beckwith in 1994 proved that you can go back

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in time and get justice even after decades.

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It led directly to the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in 2008, which created

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a whole unit of the Department of Justice to re-examine over 100 cold cases from the civil

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rights era.

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Merle Evers' Williams testified at those hearings.

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She said that her husband's case showed that justice knows no time limits.

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Medgar Evers died carrying t-shirts that said, "Jim Crow must go because he believed the

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truth mattered."

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The fact that some people are still debating on whether to call his murderer a racist, more

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than 60 years after his death and 32 years after his killer was convicted, shows how much

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work is still left to do.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories.

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My name is Joe, I'm the host, and here's an email subject thanks for helping this

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mom celebrate Black History.

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Hey Joe, I'm a proud mom of two thriving Black boys, ages 9 and 10, and I've been listening

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to your podcast for years now, so I guess that officially makes me an OG listener.

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In honor of Black History Month, my boys and I have been playing soul music on our drives

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to school.

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The other morning, Mercy Mercy Me by Marvin Gaye came on, and I started telling them about

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how incredibly gifted he was, and how, tragically, his life ended at the hands of his father.

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As their questions started coming, I realized I didn't want to fumble through such a heavy

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story on my own.

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Instantly, I thought of your 10 Minute episode about Marvin Gaye's death.

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I played it for them right there in the car.

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They listened to every word.

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Because of your storytelling, their questions about what happened were answered in a way that

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was honest, thoughtful, and age-appropriate.

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More importantly, they walked away with understanding, not just the tragedy, but the impact Marvin

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Gaye's music had on the world.

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I don't think you always realize how powerful your podcast is.

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Your work helped me turn a hard conversation into a meaningful one my boys will remember.

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Thank you for telling stories that are authentic, respectful, and truly impactful, with appreciation,

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Kenya from Texas.

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Now, I've already replied to Kenya and told her as much, but that email meant so much to

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me.

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I read through it a couple of times before recording this podcast, and the one that you

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just heard me do is the first time that I've ever read it without getting a little teary-eyed.

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That's how much it means to me.

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Okay.

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And I don't know how I'm going to transition from that, but I'm going to try.

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Hey, if you're a new listener to this podcast, make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're

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And that's going to do it.

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That's your episode for today.

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Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder.

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See you next time.

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[Music]

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[Bell]