Quote by Medgar Evers, quoted in The Mart

I graduated pretty quickly. When I was eleven or twelve a close friend of the family got lynched. I guess he was about forty years old, married, and we used to play with his kids. I remember the Saturday night a bunch of white men beat him to death at the Decatur fairgrounds because he sassed back a white woman. They just left him dead on the ground. Everyone in town knew it but never said a word in public. I went down and saw his bloody clothes. They left those clothes on a fence for about a year. Every Negro in town was supposed to get the message from those clothes and I can see those clothes now in my mind's eye.... But nothing was said in public. No sermons in church. No news. No protest. It was as though this man just dissolved except for the bloody clothes.... Just before I went into the Army I began wondering how long I could stand it. I used to watch the Saturday night sport of white men trying to run down a Negro with their car, or white gangs coming through town to beat up a Negro.http://www.africawithin.com/bios/medgar_evers.htm

Summary

This quote is from civil rights activist Medgar Evers, giving a personal account of witnessing a lynching and the lack of public outrage or condemnation in response. Evers highlights the silence and inaction of the community in the face of racial violence, evident in both the dispassionate treatment of the lynching victim and the absence of any public acknowledgment or protest. The quote serves as a powerful reminder of the pervasive racism and systemic oppression endured by African Americans, and the urgency for change and advocacy for justice.