Synopsis
The dark story of a white supremacist's life - fully revealed in a compelling, richly detailed biography that only an insider could tell.
One of the most tragic and notorious murders of the 1960s was the assassination of Medgar Evers, the revered Mississippi NAACP leader, in June of 1963. The slaying of Evers not only galvanized the civil rights movement in the South, but it later had an unspeakably profound effect on one young man. Although no one in his family would tell him the truth, this young man knew that hidden away in the shadows of deep family secrets, there was a story waiting to be told. It had something to do with Evers's death and something to do with his uncle - and it interested him from a very early age. In this way began an extraordinary search, seven years in the making, for a very personal kind of justice. Portait of a Racist: The Man Who Killed Medgar Evers? is author Reed Massengill's relentless quest to unearth the truth about his own uncle - Byron De La Beckwith - the notorious white supremacist and alleged assassin of Medgar Evers.
This is an astonishing biography of a man consumed with racial hatred, who believes in his God-given mission to uphold the racial purity of the old-plantation South. Although the case of Evers's murder has not yet been formally solved, and Beckwith's two previous murder trials in 1964 - both decided by all-white, all-male juries - ended in mistrials, it is still widely believed that Beckwith is Evers's killer. In December 1990, Beckwith was again charged with the murder, after a lengthy and remarkable investigation uncovered new evidence against him. He is expected to be tried for a third time on a charge of first-degree murder.
Still insisting on his own innocence, Beckwith has communicated through letters with hiw nephew for more than six years. Along with Beckwith's correspondence, Massengill has conducted numerous interviews, with people who knew Beckwith. Much of Massengill's extensive research includes personal interviews, with his aunt, who was Beckwith's first wife, Mary Louise Williams (known as Willie). In this book, "Willie," who was married to and divorced from Beckwith three separate times, comes forward to tell of her relationship with Beckwith, which was often physically abusive.
Massengill has courageously uncovered revelations of which not even Beckwith himself is aware. From Beckwith's birth to a mother who could not accept the demise of the antebellum South, to his upbringing as an orphan in the Mississippi Delta, Portrait of a Racist presents a mesmerizingly detailed biography of Beckwith and probes the psychological makeup of a mind turned to racial hatred, making it both a compelling biography and a lasting work of history.
Reviews
There is a morbid fascination to this biography of Byron De La Beckwith, the white supremacist charged (but not convicted) in the murder of Mississippi civil rights activist Medgar Evers (1925-1963). Massengill, who has written for Vanity Fair and Forbes , is Beckwith's nephew and had his uncle's cooperation for two years--until his uncle insisted that he wanted a book that "would call attention to what he viewed as past legal injustices he had suffered at the hands of the Jews." But Massengill did have the full cooperation of his aunt Mary, who lived through three stormy marriages with Beckwith (the last ending in 1965). With the Medgar Evers case reopened in 1990, Massengill does not offer any new evidence of Beckwith's guilt, but Massengill's aunt Mary is convinced of it. In highly readable detail, Massengill portrays the life and trials of his uncle, who progressed from 1960s arch segregationist to a role in the right-wing Christian Identity movement. Beckwith, who served a Louisiana prison term from 1977 to 1980 for his involvement in a bomb plot, still awaits a third trial in the Evers case. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Biography of Byron De La Beckwith, the presumed killer of civil-rights martyr Medgar Evers: in spite of its flaws, a grim reminder of the hate groups that have plagued the movement for racial justice. Byron De La Beckwith, known as ``De La,'' was born in California to a drunken father and an unstable mother, both with exaggerated notions of their social status. The debt-ridden father died when Beckwith was five, the child then moving with his mother to her native Mississippi. Beckwith failed in school but succeeded as a Marine, returning home from service with an intensified love of weaponry and with a wife (the author's aunt) he'd met in Tennessee. Mary Louise Williams, known as ``Willie,'' was an alcoholic, a frequent user of the word ``nigger,'' and, on the domestic front, nearly as violent as Beckwith, to whom she was married three times. In general, Massingill strikes the reader here as being excessively sympathetic to his aunt, indiscriminately mixing her personal resentments against Beckwith--using various staples of psychobabble--into the important history he tells. He does tell that history, however, in a highly readable narrative, describing Beckwith's racist environment, the vile and retrograde organizations with which he made common cause, and Evers's noble effort to fulfill his mission. Thirty years after Evers's murder (Beckwith, in prison, awaits his third trial), hate groups proliferate. One can't help wishing that Massengill had reduced the personal detail here, allowing more emphasis on the great questions of politics and justice woven into Beckwith's, Evers's--and our--social understanding. (Sixteen-page photo insert--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
While in jail in 1963, accused of the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi, Byron de La Beckwith was treated as a hero by fellow white residents anxious to see segregation upheld; by the 1980s, in prison for a weapons violation, he was largely forgotten by all but the most diehard of white supremacists. Massengill, Beckwith's nephew, traces Beckwith's history, beginning with his service in battle during World War II continuing through his activism in groups such as the white-supremacist Citizens' Council and later the Klan. The chapters depicting Beckwith's various trials for Evers' murder (hung juries were the result) are the most compelling, although a later, ill-fated run for lieutenant governor, fueled by his growing resentment of blacks and Jews during the 1970s and 1980s, comprises a masterly portrait of a man unable to cope with events passing him by. In addition, the in-depth look at the Klan and other white-supremacist groups during the turbulent 1960s and beyond is top-notch. Did Beckwith kill Evers? We may never find out, but this first-rate look at a troubled man symbolizing a chilling underground movement answers many questions while raising countless others. Joe Collins
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
