Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stands apart from the other civil rights leaders of the 20th century. director J. Edgar Hoover’s paranoia that a Black messiah would emerge to provoke this nation’s oppressed Black masses to revolution. But King was far from a lone messiah. Among those who took inspiration from King was Medgar Evers; they and Malcolm X formed what James Baldwin called the great trio of the civil rights movement. Evers, the then-32-year-old Mississippi field secretary for the N.A.A.C.P., first wrote to King in 1956, hoping to bring him to his home state.

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Persons: Martin Luther King Jr, J, Edgar Hoover’s, King, — King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Evers, Washington . Evers, “, ’ Organizations: University of Mississippi Law School Locations: Montgomery, Ala, Washington ., Mississippi, Europe