On this day, June 12, in 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was fatally shot outside his home in Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith. Evers was instrumental in desegregating the University of Mississippi and investigating the death of Emmitt Till, 14, who was killed for reportedly flirting with a white woman.

Carrying T-shirts that read “Jim Crow Must Go,” Evers was assassinated hours after President John Kennedy gave a speech on national television supporting civil rights.