Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story [Hardcover]

Charles Evers (Author), Andrew Szanton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471122513 | ISBN-13: 978-0471122517 | Publication Date: November 19, 1996 | Edition: 1

"Have No Fear reminds us what it meant to live under a system where segregation was important enough to kill for and where being treated with dignity and respect was a whites-only entitlement." --The New York Times Book Review

"A gutsy, American patriot and treasure . . . an important slice of American history."--Dan Rather

"Charles Evers has given us one of the most extraordinary memoirs about race in America that I know. This holy sinner of the civil rights era, who kept company with mobsters, bootleggers, call girls, Kings, Kennedys, and Rockefellers has produced, with Andrew Szanton, a salient one-man's history of Mississippi and the United States before and after Brown v. Board of Education. The fascinating interplay of racial nihilism and political sagacity is reminiscent of the early Malcolm X and the mature Frederick Douglass." --David Levering Lewis

"Truly spellbinding . . . relives the fear, desperation, and confrontation that marked the civil rights struggle." --The seattle times

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Brother of Medgar Evers, who was murdered in 1963 in Jackson, Miss., for his civil rights activities, Charles Evers was also an activist in his own right. He succeeded his brother as head of the Mississippi NAACP, and became the first black mayor in Mississippi since Reconstruction. But he was also a complicated, quixotic figure, a man historian David Levering Lewis calls a "holy sinner of the civil rights era." Charles Evers helped finance Medgar Evers's work with profits made running numbers in Chicago and at various times in his life, as he chronicles in this book, made money bootlegging liquor and arranging call girls. Nonetheless, it is moving when Evers calls for an end to hate.

From Publishers Weekly

After his youngest brother, civil rights leader Medgar Evers, was murdered in 1963, outspoken, flamboyant Charles Evers carried the torch, running the Mississippi branch of the NAACP, integrating schools and hotels, organizing voter registration drives and boycotts, facing down the Ku Klux Klan. In 1969 he became the first black mayor in a century of the biracial Mississippi town of Fayette. A gripping autobiography, assembled by freelance writer Szanton from dozens of interviews with Evers, this first-person narrative brings to light an unsung, politically incorrect civil rights hero. Evers offers a searing account of growing up in Mississippi, "lynching capital of the country," in the 1920s and '30s. During WWII he fought in the invasion of the Philippines. Disc jockey, cafe proprietor, mortician, shopping center owner, he was also a numbers runner for the Chicago mob, a whorehouse owner and a bootlegger in the 1950s and early '60s. Father of eight daughters by four mothers, twice-divorced Evers has been a friend of Martin Luther King, Nelson Rockefeller, bluesmen Muddy Waters and B.B. King, Alabama's segregationist governor George Wallace (with whom he sought common ground), and informal adviser to JFK, LBJ, Robert Kennedy, Nixon. In 1980 he endorsed Reagan and later became a Republican. Today, as blunt and unpredictable as ever, he ridicules "hustler" Jesse Jackson, Jimmy Carter, Afrocentrism, Louis Farrakhan and blacks who blame their economic problems on whites. Author tour. (Jan.) Mississippi, a film about Medgar Evers and his family starring Whoopi Goldberg, Alec Baldwin and James Woods.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (November 19, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471122513
• ISBN-13: 978-0471122517
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,624,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars what a book!, June 3, 2000

By 

sandra beasley (cleveland, ohio United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (Paperback)

while I didn't agree with everything he said in the book I thought he was very honest in writing about his life and about his brother. it's defintley worth reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, July 18, 1998

By 

Patricia Horton "Hortonsbks" (St. Petersburg, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (Hardcover)

Written by Medgar Evers' lesser known brother, this is a powerful account of the civil rights movement in the south by someone who lived it. Order it. Buy it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars By Far, The Bravest Man I Have Ever Met, July 12, 2004

By 

G. M Mantle "gmantle3" (New Orleans, LA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story (Paperback)

I first met Charles Evers in June of 1999, at my first Medger Evers/B.B. Homecoming Event. Charles Evers is a no frills, hardworking individual, who knows how to get things done! I finally picked up this book after my third homecoming. This year's homecoming took place on the 41st Anniversary of Medger's death. I, hereby salute Mr. Evers for everything he's ever done, for every risk he ever took, for all the successes he has made, and for writing this book. If you want to better understand what it was like for the negro people of Mississippi, in the 60's, 70's, and 80's READ THIS BOOK! If you want to know how a man can be riddled with hate and then go on to do the right things for his people, in a non-violent, yet persistant way, READ THIS BOOK! And then plan a trip to Jackson next June and pay homage to the Ever's brothers, attend the Medger's Memorial Service and meet many of the people who helped create the Mississippi we know today; then and have a great time mingling with the great people of Mississippi at the two, all-day music events, which are headlined by none other than Mr. B.B. King.